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The episode begins on the same night that previous episode ended. In Willow's dorm room, she and Tara are enjoying each other's company: Tara tells Willow a story about a kitten, and then joins her in bed for a snuggle. The same night, Buffy tells Giles the information that she discovered at the factory: that Dawn is the key, and that Glory is hell-bent on finding her. They decide to protect Dawn without telling others about it. Meanwhile, Glory easily frees herself from the collapsed factory rubble. At the hospital, Ben enters the locker room. A moment later, Glory is there and captures a Lei-Ach demon, who tells her that Buffy is the Slayer. Glory sends it and its friends to kill her. Buffy decides to leave on-campus accommodation and move back to the Summers house to be closer to her ailing mother. The gang assists with packing boxes, and Willow reminds everyone about Tara's upcoming 20th birthday. Later at the magic shop, Buffy and Xander struggle to come up with ideas for presents for Tara, coming to the realisation that they don't really know her very well. They similarly struggle to find information on Glory, since Buffy's best description that she is "kind of like Cordelia" proves too vague to be of use. A young man comes into the Magic Box and disparages magic. He reveals himself as Tara's big brother, Donny, who has come to town with Tara's father and her cousin Beth for Tara's birthday. While Tara is clearly not thrilled at their presence, she agrees to have dinner with her family that evening. Tara returns to her room to find her father there. He expresses disappointment that she has not quit magic and berates her for being out of reach for months. He reminds her (and reveals to the audience) that all women in the family show their demon selves after their 20th birthday, which is why her family has come for her. After he leaves, Willow returns and wants to repeat the demon location spell that Tara had secretly sabotaged previously. Tara fakes fatigue, so Willow returns to the magic shop. Tara secretly follows her and, from hiding, casts a spell to prevent her friends from seeing demonic manifestations of evil. Meanwhile, Riley is drinking alone in Willy's old demon bar after another argument with Buffy about her isolationism. Sandy hits on him, but he recognizes her as a vampire. In his crypt, Harmony tells Spike that the Lei-Ach demons have been summoned to kill Buffy. Spike, who had earlier been fantasizing about fighting Buffy while having sex with Harmony, leaves to help, although he tells Harmony that he is going to watch and enjoy her death. Beth finds Tara, and derides her for being "selfish", leaving her father and brother to "do for themselves". Beth realizes that Tara has cast a spell on her friends, then leaves to find Tara's father to inform him what his daughter has done. Three Lei-Ach demons arrive to attack Buffy, but because of Tara's spell they are invisible to the gang. They search for the Slayer and attack everyone in their path. Giles hides Dawn under a desk. Only Buffy manages to put up a decent fight. Spike arrives and fights one of the Lei- Achs, although being demon himself his entire scuffle is unseen by Buffy. Tara arrives, realizes her spell has gone awry, and breaks it. The demons can again be seen, and are quickly beaten. Tara's family arrives. Her father explains that, because of demonic heritage, all of the women in their family turn evil when they become adults. Willow is visibly hurt that Tara has hidden this from her, and Tara tries to re-affirm her love for Willow. When Tara's family insists on taking her away against her wishes, all her friends make it clear they will fight to defend her, declaring that while the Maclays may be her blood kin, her friends are her real family. Anya then asks Beth and Tara's father what kind of demon Tara is. Their refusal to give a straight answer (and Mr. Maclay's puzzled look) arouses Spike's suspicion, so he punches Tara in the nose, activating Spike's chip and proving that Tara is, in fact, human. Spike concludes that the legend of the Maclay women assuming their demonic heritages upon adulthood is just an old family myth maintained by the Maclay males to keep their women frightened and subordinate to them. Bolstered by the knowledge that she is fully human, Tara declares she will stay with her new family, and confidently tells her relatives to leave, which they do after a slight hesitation. Riley arrives at the birthday party and kisses Buffy. Tara opens cheesy witch-related birthday presents from the gang, and everybody mingles. Tara and Willow embrace on the dance floor and begin to levitate. 

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Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell) is a nerdy, faithful, middle-aged publishing executive with an overactive imagination and a mid-life crisis, whose wife, Helen (Evelyn Keyes), and son, Ricky (Butch Bernard), are spending the summer in Maine. When he returns home with the kayak paddle Ricky accidentally left behind, he meets a woman (Marilyn Monroe), who is a commercial actress and former model who rents the apartment upstairs while in town to make television spots for a brand of toothpaste. That evening, he works on reading the manuscript of a book in which psychiatrist Dr. Brubaker (Oskar Homolka) claims that almost all men are driven to have extra-marital affairs in the seventh year of marriage. Sherman has an imaginary conversation with Helen, trying to convince her, in three fantasy sequences, that he is irresistible to women, including his secretary, a nurse, and Helen's bridesmaid, but she laughs it off. A tomato plant then crashes into his lounge chair; the woman upstairs apologizes for accidentally knocking it off the balcony, and Richard invites her down for a drink. Tom Ewell reprised his Broadway role with Monroe replacing Vanessa Brown. He waits for her to get dressed, including in underwear she says she keeps cool in her icebox. When she arrives, a vision in pink, they have a drink and he lies about being married. When she sees his wedding ring, he backtracks but she is unconcerned, having no designs on him, only on his air-conditioning. He has a fantasy that she is a femme fatale overcome by his playing of Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto. In reality, she prefers Chopsticks, which they play together. Richard, overcome by his fantasies, awkwardly grabs at her, causing them to fall off the piano bench. He apologizes for his indiscretion but she says it happens to her all the time. Guilt-ridden, however, he asks her to leave. Over the next few days, they spend more time together and Richard imagines that they are growing closer, although she is immune to his imagined charms. Helen continually calls her husband, asking him to send the paddle so Ricky can use the kayak, but Richard is repeatedly distracted. His waning resolve to resist temptation fuels his fear that he is succumbing to the "Seven Year Itch". He seeks help from Dr. Brubaker, but to no avail. His imagination then runs even wilder: the young woman tells a visiting plumber (Victor Moore) how Richard is "just like the Creature from the Black Lagoon"; the plumber repeats her story to neighbor McKenzie, whom Helen had asked to drop by to pick up Ricky's paddle. Richard imagines his wife with McKenzie on a hayride which actually takes place but into which he injects his paranoia, guilt and jealousy. After seeing The Creature from the Black Lagoon, the young woman stands over the subway grate to experience the breeze – Monroe in the iconic scene in the pleated white halterneck dress, blowing her skirt in the wind. Eventually coming to his senses, and fearing his wife's retribution (which he imagines in a fantasy scene) Richard, paddle in hand, tells the young woman she can stay in his apartment – he then runs off to catch the next train to Maine to be with Helen and Ricky. 

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The title character, whose name is shortened in the strip to Levi, is drawn as a faceless baby who constantly carries a stuffed toy rabbit called either Bunny or Rabbit. A pet cat called Cat is often around to give advice. The strip describes Levi's experiences as he crawls around a surreal and often frightening landscape filled with disjointed words and objects, which perhaps reflect the incomprehensible nature of the world as seen by a baby, but which also raise philosophical questions of interest to adults. 

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The player's character is a postal clerk in the small fishing village of Festeron. The cranky postmaster, Mr. Crisp, orders the player to deliver an important envelope to the proprietor of Ye Olde Magick Shoppe. The proprietor in question, a kindly old lady, then asks the player to rescue her cat from a mysterious sorceress known only as The Evil One. Stepping out of the store, the player finds that quaint Festeron has mysteriously been transformed into a more sinister town called Witchville. There are but a few hours to defeat The Evil One. The player soon finds the Wishbringer, a magical stone that can grant seven wishes if a suitable object is used in conjunction. To see the future, for example, the player must be wearing glasses and holding the stone. The seven wishes that can be granted by the stone are for advice, darkness, flight, foresight, freedom, luck, and rain. Each wish can only be used once per game, and requires that the player possess some related object. A player can solve Wishbringer by using the wishing stone, then play it again without using it to get a higher score. A few Infocom games have puzzles with multiple solutions (for example, the "Loud Room" from Zork). However, Wishbringer has several such puzzles, many of which can be solved either in a straightforward (that is, non-magical) manner or by using one of the stone's wishes. The game can be successfully completed without using any wishes: At the Congratulations screen, the game informs the player of this fact, if the player had used any wishes. Conversely, it is impossible to finish the game using all of the stone's wishes (wishing for flight invariably causes the game to be lost.) 

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Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin is a scientist living in the city of New Crobuzon. He is approached by Yagharek, a member of a birdlike species known as garuda, who has had his wings removed as a punishment for an undisclosed crime in his native land. He asks Isaac to help him to fly again. Isaac agrees and starts collecting flying creatures for research purposes with the aid of Lemuel Pigeon, a fence with links to the criminal underworld. One creature is a large and unusual caterpillar, stolen from a government research lab. The caterpillar sickens until Isaac accidentally discovers it feeds on a popular hallucinogenic drug. It grows and starts to pupate. After reaching maturity, it emerges as a monstrous flying beast known as a slakemoth, able to paralyse its victims using hypnotic patterns on its wings. It escapes after eating the mind of one of Isaac's colleagues, leaving him catatonic. Isaac, Yagharek and Lemuel resolve to re-capture or destroy it. Isaac's girlfriend Lin is a khepri, an insect-like humanoid and an artist. She is commissioned by Mr Motley, a mob boss, to make a sculpture of him. Mr. Motley has four more of the slakemoths in captivity and harvests their milk to sell as drugs. After Isaac's slakemoth frees its siblings, Mr Motley discovers Isaac's connection to the slakemoths. Assuming Isaac to be a potential rival in the drug trade, he imprisons Lin, demanding that Isaac return his creatures. The slakemoths start to terrorise New Crobuzon, feeding on its inhabitants. With the aid of Derkhan, a journalist and friend of Lin, Isaac discovers that Mr. Motley purchased his slakemoths from the government. The security forces become aware of the activities of the slakemoths and begin to suppress the various rebellious elements within the city. To re-capture the slakemoths, they attempt to enlist the help of demons and the Weaver, a spider-like creature who moves through dimensions, obsessed with patterns and its own peculiar view of beauty. The demons refuse to assist and the Weaver soon ends up aiding Isaac. Isaac and his friends kill one of the slakemoths with the aid of a sentient machine known as the Construct Council. They then destroy the eggs that the slakemoths have laid before laying a trap for the remainder of the creatures. The trap is mostly successful, but the last slakemoth escapes and returns 'home' to Mr. Motley's facility. The Weaver transports Isaac to the warehouse where they find Lin, who has been tortured but is still working on the sculpture. A confrontation occurs, during which Lin's mind is half eaten and the last slakemoth is killed by Mr. Motley's men. Isaac escapes with Lin and Yagharek and prepares to leave the city. Isaac learns of Yagharek's crime, a rape of one of his own species, and refuses to help him fly again. Lin never fully recovers and Yagharek is left alone in the city, pulling out his feathers and having to accept his new flightless identity. 

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Please Twins! is a story about three high-school students: Maiku Kamishiro, Karen Onodera, and Miina Miyafuji. The three were drawn together by a photograph of their childhood home which later makes all of them seek out the house in the picture. However, the picture shows only two children, a boy and a girl. The three conclude from this that only one of the girls, either Karen or Miina, can be related to Maiku. The other must be a nonrelative. The only other identifying feature of the pair in the picture is that the boy and the girl have eyes of the same unusual color, a feature that furthers the ambiguity as all three of them share the same eye color. The main concern of the male lead, Maiku, is that, although he eventually comes to care for both of the girls, he does not know which of them is his sister. In addition, the two girls develop feelings for Maiku, forming a love triangle that cannot be resolved until the truth of their relationship is known. All three main characters are in the predicament of wanting to discover their past versus the risk of losing a romantic relationship. The events of the story are set the year after Please Teacher! and characters from that series appear in supporting roles throughout Please Twins!. 

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Over a persistent ticking sound, Jon introduces himself: “The sound you are hearing is not a technical problem. It is not a musical cue. It is not a joke. It is the sound of one man's mounting anxiety. I... am that man.” Jon is an aspiring composer for musical theatre, who lives in SoHo, New York. He is nearing his 30th birthday and worries about his aging and lack of achievement (“30/90”). Michael, a friend of Jon's since childhood, gave up acting to pursue a more lucrative career as a research executive. Susan, Jon's girlfriend, is a dancer who teaches ballet to “wealthy and untalented children.” Susan and Jon discuss the upcoming 30th birthday party that she is throwing for him. She pressures him to play “Happy Birthday to You” to himself on the piano at the party, but he is hesitant because it reminds him of the aging aspect of birthdays. Michael wants to schedule a job interview for Jon with Michael's firm. Again, Jon is hesitant, but agrees to think it over. Later, on the roof of his apartment building, Jon reveals that he is also nervous about an upcoming workshop of his newest musical, SUPERBIA. Susan comes to join him; he comments on her dress and how beautiful it makes her look (“Green Green Dress”). The next morning, Jon is awake early. Susan asks him about the possibility of leaving New York. Susan wants to raise a family and doesn’t view that as compatible with Jon's “starving artist” lifestyle. Jon is torn between following his dream of composing and opting for security and family in a different career. Meanwhile, the other two main characters recap their views on what Jon should do (“Johnny Can’t Decide”). Jon's reverie, however, is cut short; he needs to report to his day job as a waiter in a SoHo diner (“Sunday”). After work, Michael picks Jon up in his brand new BMW to show Jon his new apartment. Michael exults at the thought of a life of luxury (“No More”), and pressures Jon further to consider changing his career path. Frustrated, Jon finally agrees to accompany Michael to work the next day and visit a brainstorming session at his firm. Back at home, Jon phones his parents and then his agent. He plans to spend the remainder of the evening composing, but he is interrupted by a call from Susan, who wants to see him. They argue, albeit in a passive and psychological manner that scarcely seems like an argument at all (“Therapy”). On Monday morning, Jon walks to Michael's office for his brainstorming session. On the way, Jon thinks back to a workshop in which his work was reviewed by a composer “so legendary his name may not be uttered aloud…” (“St----- S-------”). He also worries about his musical style and its place on Broadway, but has little time to develop this train of thought before he arrives at Michael's firm. The brainstorming session involves naming a cooking fat substitute through a convoluted “idea- generating” process. Jon sees the futility of the process, and his unwillingness to cooperate gets him removed from the meeting. Later, as Jon drives Michael to the airport for a business trip, they argue about the meeting. Michael tells Jon that the life Susan wants doesn’t sound bad, and that he wishes his job could give him the chance to settle down (“Real Life”). After dropping Michael off, Jon goes to a rehearsal for SUPERBIA, but not before stopping to get a snack of Twinkies (“Sugar”). At the market, he spies Karessa Johnson, one of his actors for SUPERBIA. She reveals a similar weakness for Twinkies, and this leads to a sudden friendship between the two. After the rehearsal, Susan sees Jon and Karessa walking together and becomes jealous. She informs Jon that she's gotten a job in Northampton, Massachusetts which may be permanent. Jon and Susan argue about the state of their relationship; in a turnaround from the events leading up to “Therapy,” Jon begs Susan to stay and be with him. Despite this, she leaves for home, and Jon thinks about what may have happened to make her behave this way (“See Her Smile”). The next morning, Jon arrives early at the theatre for the workshop of SUPERBIA. Although initially the theatre is empty, soon it is filled with very important people: Jon's family and friends, as well as Broadway producers and artists, including Jon's idol, St----- S-------. Karessa steals the show with her performance of “Come to Your Senses”. The workshop is a success, and Jon gets many congratulations; but there are no offers to produce SUPERBIA on or off Broadway. Jon is no closer to being a professional composer, and so, in his eyes, the workshop has been a failure. After the workshop, Jon visits Michael and tells him that he is through with music. For the first time, though, Michael tries to persuade him to stick with it. Michael says that while he enjoys how he makes a lot more money now than he did as a starving artist, he finds the job itself to be emotionally banal and unrewarding. The two argue, and Jon yells at Michael for not understanding fear or insecurity. Michael responds by telling Jon that he is HIV-positive. Shocked at this news, Jon leaves quickly. Distressed and alone, Jon wanders through Central Park until he finds himself in the abandoned theater inside Belvedere Castle. He finds an old rehearsal piano, and begins to play it while collecting his thoughts. Jon ponders on whether the amount of sacrifice required for his career in music is worth it, and whether those telling him to “have it all, play the game” are right (“Why”). Ultimately, he realizes that he will only be happy as a professional composer, no matter what hardships that may bring. The next morning is Jon's thirtieth birthday party (“30/90 Reprise”). He sees Susan, who is getting ready to leave. She gives him his birthday gift: a thousand sheets of blank manuscript paper. They agree to write to each other, and she leaves. Michael gives him a birthday gift of belts (Michael thinks belts are a sign of luxury). The phone rings, and the caller is Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim leaves Jon his contact information so they can meet and discuss SUPERBIA. Jon realizes that he is surrounded by friends and that his talents are finally being recognized. He says, “the tick tick booms are softer now. I can barely hear them, and I think if I play loud enough I can drown them out completely.” Jon sits down at his piano to play “Happy Birthday to You.”plot synopsis at MTI Shows mtishows.com, accessed December 6, 2008Curtain Up review, curtainup.com, June 22, 2001 

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The Hegemony is an interstellar governmental entity formed by many planets, most of which are connected by instantaneous farcaster portals. Some worlds, like Hyperion, have no farcaster portals and are sparsely settled; they are known as the "Outback". The farcasters are created and managed by the TechnoCore, an AI civilization. While the Core's physical location is unknown, they interact with humans through various virtual realities. The Hegemony is opposed by the Ousters, genetically modified humans that fled the Hegemony's growing influence even before Earth was destroyed. The Ousters have mutated physically, believing that they should adapt to their outer-space surroundings rather than adapt the surroundings themselves. They have rarely fought full-scale conflicts with the Hegemony but are currently launching an invasion of Hyperion. 

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Mays Gilliam is the alderman for the 9th Ward in Washington, D.C.. After learning he is likely to lose his job and getting dumped by his girlfriend, Kim, Gilliam is surprisingly chosen as the Democratic Party candidate for the 2004 presidential election after his party's original presidential and vice-presidential nominees die in a plane crash and he is lauded as a hero for saving a woman from an explosion. Assuming the election was already lost to incumbent Republican vice-president Brian Lewis, the Democrats decided to pick a likable but unwinnable minority candidate to improve their chances in the 2008 presidential election. At first, Gilliam feels he will not be able to succeed as President because he would be representing the entire African-American populace, and does not want to do anything to mess it up. However, Gilliam begins to rise in the polls after his brother persuades him to speak out for what he believes. He begins to talk about issues such as welfare, money, society, etc. After Lewis runs a series of attack ads including one saying Gilliam supports cancer, Gilliam begins to fight back using what he claimed was "kissing" his opponent (taken from Bugs Bunny–Elmer Fudd cartoons). A part of this strategy includes dubbing a videotape of Osama bin Laden saying he hates America but loves Brian Lewis. This strategy gains Gilliam even more points in the polls. As voting day draws closer, Gilliam eventually learns the reason why he was chosen as the party candidate, fires some disloyal campaign operatives (although they reconciled with him afterwards), and chooses his brother as his running mate. He later has a debate with his opponent in which he manages to win the crowd over by speaking truth about American life. Finally, Gilliam ends up winning the election and the presidency. The film ends with a shot of Mount Rushmore with Mays Gilliam's head added, complete with bling. 

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Max (Vincent Cassel) is a former bohemian and an amateur writer who gets a job in New York and leaves his girlfriend Lisa (Monica Bellucci), with whom he was madly in love, in mysterious circumstances. After two years, he returns home to Paris, and decides to settle down and gets engaged to Muriel (Sandrine Kiberlain). By chance, he catches a glimpse of his lost love, Lisa, in a café, but fails to make contact with her before she storms out. Determined to meet her, Max secretly cancels his business trip abroad to pursue his lost love. Through a series of ruses and perseverance, he enters Lisa's apartment. Hearing that somebody else has arrived, he hides in her wardrobe. First, he thinks it is Lisa, as the girl who came to the apartment resembles Lisa from behind. After several misunderstandings, they finally get acquainted. The girl introduces herself as Lisa. The same night, they make love, and their relationship starts to develop. The girl's real name is Alice (Romane Bohringer). During the film, flashbacks are intertwined with the narrative to provide a background for Max, Lisa, and especially for Alice, shedding light on the situation. The flashbacks show that Alice and Lisa were best friends, living in apartments on the same floor of two facing buildings, and that Alice became obsessed with Max, Lisa's then-boyfriend, from a distance. She restyled herself to look like Lisa while secretly engineering a breakup between them. Lisa is a stage actress and leaves abruptly for a two-month tour, giving Alice a letter to deliver to Max asking him to wait for her; Alice never sends the letter. Max, believing Lisa left because she didn't love him, accepts a job in New York and leaves. Upon her return, Lisa is heartbroken that Max has left her and leaves on a cruise (a gift from Alice) to ease her mind, where she meets a rich, married older man named Daniel. Lisa is being pursued by Daniel, who might have murdered his wife to get closer to her. For this reason, she avoids her flat and lets Alice use it. To complicate matters further, Alice is dating Max's best friend, Lucien, who is also Max's confidante. Eventually, the truth begins to unravel in front of everyone's eyes, leading to dramatic and life-changing consequences for all involved. In a sub-plot, Alice is seen to be acting in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, drawing comparisons between the four lovers in the film and those in the play; it is arguable that the whole film is a rendition of the play. The film begins and ends in "reality" where Max and Muriel have a world weary but sensible life in high finance (and the implication is that Muriel is the boss's daughter, thus imitating Egeus' involvement in Hermia's marriage to Demetrius), but almost all the action takes place in a dreamlike trance where the lovers don't really know whom they love. Lucien is always faithful to Alice, and pursues her, but both Alice and Lisa (who, as their names imply, are reflections of each other) initially both love Max, and Max, although madly in love with Lisa, turns to Alice after reading her diary, just before reality dawns and he accepts his fate with Muriel. Lisa returns to her apartment and is confronted by Daniel, who drops a lighter on the floor (covered in gasoline) causing the apartment to explode and blowing Lucien through the window of a café across the street. Alice leaves her life behind and flies to Rome, bidding Max one last farewell glance as he embraces Muriel at the airport. 

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This game is a sequel to the events of the original Kid Dracula. Galamoth (called Garamoth in the game) has returned and it is up to Kid Dracula to stop him once again. However, he seems to have forgotten most of his spells. Also, many of his minions have turned against him and joined Galamoth. Death remains by his side however, and gives him tips and heirlooms from his father, Dracula, along the way. 

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By late June 1941, the United Kingdom alone stood against Nazi Germany on the Western Front. In the East, the Russian Army was feeling the full force of Operation Barbarossa. To show solidarity among the unlikely capitalist-communist Alliance, Winston Churchill and Bomber Command planned a massive aerial bombardment of German territories. Unfortunately and inexplicably, Bomber Command's planes were getting shot down in record numbers. Meanwhile, 18-year-old Danish schoolboy Harald Olufsen grows increasingly dissatisfied with his country's cooperation with the German invaders. His resentment of the Wehrmacht leads him to discover the truth about a hidden military installation, a truth known to only a select few in the Nazi organization. Running from the German authorities and an old family enemy, Copenhagen police detective Peter Flemming, Harald knows that he must get to Britain. But to do so in time to save the bombers, Harald has one option: flight. 

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Bixby and Cruz as Tom and Eddie The show centered on Tom Corbett (Bill Bixby), a handsome, thirty-something magazine publisher and widower from Los Angeles. Following the death of his wife Helen, Tom is left to raise his mischievous, freckle-faced son, six-year-old Eddie (Brandon Cruz). Eddie wants a new mother, so to that end, he cleverly manipulates his father's relationships with women, sometimes even trying to set his father up to fall for women Eddie knows and likes first. The father-son duo's domestic arrangements are managed, with great discretion, by their Japanese housekeeper, Mrs. Livingston (Miyoshi Umeki). Her sage advice adds to the comedic mix in situations where she looks after Eddie, and sometimes helps him further his schemes to marry off his father and find a new mother. Mrs. Livingston addresses her employer, Tom, as "Mr. Eddie's Father." Characters from Tom Corbett's office included Tina Rickles (Kristina Holland), as his secretary, and Norman Tinker (James Komack), as the magazine's photographer and token radical. Norman served as Eddie's honorary uncle. 

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On Christmas Eve in Los Angeles, a dispatched LASD Sheriff is shot dead by an armed robber, who early on robbed a convenience store and also killed its African-American owner. The alcoholic, hard-driven LASD Detective Jerry Beck is tasked with the investigation. While examining police records he comes across a person of interest named Bobby Burns, who has recently been paroled from a four-year robbery sentence. He and a parole officer go to Burns' home only to find his college student brother, John, who claims he has not seen Burns and is only staying for the holidays. A man suddenly flees the house and Beck captures him after a chase on foot; he turns out to be one of Burns' friend who is also on parole from committing armed robbery. The man tells Beck that he last saw Burns driving a maroon Ford Ranch Wagon en route to Bakersfield. In Arizona, Burns and his men rob a Mexican bar and kill its patrons. A local police chief informs Beck of the crime and he immediately leaves for Arizona. Beck and the chief head to a ranch alleged to be Burns' hideout, where Burns and his men attack the officers by firing automatic weapons; they escape driving the Ford. Beck retrieves a cache of documents Burns dropped, which contains white supremacy propaganda, maps, and an address book. Beck leaves for Oklahoma to track down one of the people listed in the book, Reverend Gebhardt, who is the leader of the religious white supremacist organization Aryan Nations. Beck is joined by FBI Agent Kressler and they head to Gebhardt's church, where Gebhardt reveals the entity's aim of cleansing America of its "racial impurities", and denies having seen Burns before. Burns, though, has been hiding near the church and casing the place. That night, Burns springs on Beck while driving his car and holds him at gunpoint. As Burns prepares to shoot him, Beck crashes his car into an oncoming police vehicle to escape. During a gunfight, Beck lights a matchbook and sets a car leaking gas on fire, causing Burns to escape with his men after an explosion. Back in Los Angeles, Beck's superiors have become frustrated over his performance on the force due in part to his alcoholism and uncouth behavior. They recommend he undergo a psychiatric analysis; after the session, though, Beck threatens the psychiatrist into letting him pass the evaluation. A phone call later that day informs him that he is now fit for duty. In Colorado he meets Police Captain Dixon, who entrusts his team of black men on the force to track Burns. Along with Kressler, he and Dixon head to a paramilitary training camp which is owned by the Aryan Nations, and ambush Gebhardt and the other members. His search for Burns yields no results, which causes hostility between him and Kressler. Beck, though, discovers a concealed door that leads to a bunker. A gunfight ensues between him and Burns; Beck shoots and fatally wounds him. As he lay dying, Burns reveals that he did not kill the Los Angeles cop. John emerges from behind and, as he prepares to shoot Beck and Kressler, confesses that it was he who shot the cop to show his brother that he shared his contempt against the police and fidelity to white supremacy. Beck hurls John insults about his brother, and John reciprocates by open firing at him. When John runs out of bullets and springs from cover, Beck shoots him dead. At a press conference, Dixon informs that the FBI will be revising its position on white supremacy groups, and he credits Kressler with the success of the investigation owing to the evidence the agent gathered. Outside, Dixon and Beck befriend one another and go their separate ways. 

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A gamer playing Time Crisis II In 1997, NeoDyne Industries announces plans for a "StarLine Network" of 64 satellites that will unify the communications of all continents. However, V.S.S.E. agent Christy Ryan discovers that the company's real plan is to launch an experimental nuclear satellite into space and sell it to the highest bidder. While attempting to escape with a suitcase full of incriminating data, she is exposed and barely manages a getaway. NeoDyne agent Jakov Kinisky and his mercenary troops track Ryan to her safehouse and abduct her just as a V.S.S.E. extraction unit consisting of agents Keith Martin and Robert Baxter arrive. They pursue Kinisky to a canal, where he tries to escape on an armed speedboat. Keith and Robert pursue him and force the boat to crash, killing Kinisky. They retrieve his case and learn the satellite is to be transported via train at a rural station. They locate the train and catch up to it just as an aerial unit arrives to collect the satellite. NeoDyne's head of security, "Buff" Bryant, reveals that he arranged things so that any attempt to destroy the satellite would be in vain. He then engages the agents with his enhanced strength. They finally manage to shoot down his chopper and destroy the train. When NeoDyne mercenaries arrive to confirm their deaths, the agents kill them and use their chopper to reach the spaceport where the launch is scheduled. They arrive just as NeoDyne CEO Ernesto Diaz is preparing to launch a rocket containing the satellite. Diaz sends Wild Dog, a former crimeboss that had been defeated and maimed (his right arm has been replaced by a prosthetic mini-gun) by V.S.S.E. in the past in the original Time Crisis, to keep them occupied while he finishes his work. Despite generous amounts of assistance, Dog is defeated and chooses to commit suicide via explosives rather than surrender. Diaz takes Christy hostage and makes his way up to the launch controls. He then throws Christy off the side, but Robert catches her in time. The agents confront Diaz, who initiates the launch sequence before activating the defense system of a prototype satellite to engage them. With precious few seconds on the clock, Keith and Robert destroy the prototype, sending Diaz falling to his death. Without him to finish the sequence, the rocket malfunctions and explodes. Robert and Keith are plucked out of the water by Christy and then extracted by the V.S.S.E. just as the rest of the spaceport goes up in flames. 

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On September 30, 1975, an all- female fan club called the Disciples of James Dean meets inside a Woolworth's five-and-dime store in McCarthy, Texas, to honor the twentieth anniversary of the actor's death. The store is 62 miles away from Marfa, where Dean filmed Giant in 1955. Inside, store owner Juanita prepares for another day on the job while listening to gospel music on the radio, and also calls for Jimmy Dean by name. Meanwhile, one of the Disciples, Sissy, comes in late after helping out at the truck stop. Juanita remarks that more members could arrive soon. Another one, Mona, is taking a late bus. After Sissy worries about the weather ("118 degrees in the shade"), a flashback to a stormy night in 1955 occurs. Coming inside for shelter, Sissy asks about three friends of hers: Mona, Sydney, and Joseph "Joe" Qualley. Joe is busy stocking up some new issues of Photoplay magazine; Mona arrives late due to the weather. To Juanita's chagrin, Sissy, Mona, and Joe, go up at the counter and begin singing the doo- wop tune "Sincerely", which Juanita opposes, preferring to listen only to gospel music. Back in 1975, another two Disciples, Stella Mae and Edna Louise, make their way to the five-and-dime, bringing a red jacket that the club used to wear. Mona joins them and explains that the bus she was riding on broke down and had to be repaired. Looking at a group picture with James Dean, she recalls the last time the Disciples, all dressed in jackets, came together. As reunion preparations continue, so does the flashback. Sissy's friends joyfully break the news that Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean, will be visiting the McCarthy vicinity to film Giant; auditions will be carried out across that area. This only prompts Mona's desires to play alongside Dean, her idol, in that film. In the current day, when Mona claims that Dean chose her to raise his son, Sissy tells her that her attempts to hide Jimmy Dean are "warped and demented". Mona then loses her temper and Sissy goes outside to "cool off". Mona and Juanita leave the shop for a while, and see a window shopper, Joanne, driving in a Porsche sports car. Joanne has arrived in McCarthy thanks to an old highway sign promoting Dean's son at the store. The Disciples learn that she had a sex change operation almost thirteen years ago. Joe had been perceived as the only man in this group. In a flashback, Joanne was scorned by town-dwellers after attending a high school dance in feminine clothing, and got brutally beaten in a graveyard. Hearing that story, Stella wonders whether Joanne is a hermaphrodite—"half-man, half-woman". Joanne explains she had a sex-change operation 13 years before and is a woman, showing physical proof to several of the friends. Later that day, Juanita tells the Disciples to brace themselves for stormy weather, after thinking she hears thunder. Instead, the loud noise comes from a sports car—Mona's son Jimmy Dean, has stolen Joanne's car. As Joanne phones the Highway Patrol to have Jimmy Dean returned, another flashback takes root: they hear the radio announcer reveal that a car accident has killed actor James Dean. They decide to hold a vigil. Among the other secrets and revelations, Mona announces that she almost died from asthma. She claims she was an extra in Giant. As the reunion winds down, it appears that Joanne was the father of Mona's never-seen 19-year-old son, Jimmy Dean, who stole Joanne's Porsche. The Disciples make a pact to hold another one in the next twenty years, but Mona refuses. She, Sissy and Joanne appear in front of the mirrors and sing "Sincerely" again. The film ends with shots of the decaying, abandoned five-and-dime store, while the song fades and the wind blows. 

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Torrance Shipman is a senior at Rancho Carne High School in San Diego. Her boyfriend, Aaron, is at college, and her cheerleading squad, the Toros, is aiming for a sixth consecutive national title. Torrance is elected to replace the team captain, "Big Red", after Red graduates. Soon, however, teammate Carver is injured and can not compete with her broken leg. Torrance holds an audition for Carver's replacement, and gains Missy Pantone, a gymnast transferred from Los Angeles to the school for senior year with her twin brother Cliff. In a side-plot, Torrance flirts with Cliff. While watching the Toros practice, Missy recognizes their routines from a rival squad that her previous high school used to compete against. After accusing Torrance of lying and stealing the routine, she learns from Torrance's reaction she was unaware. Missy drives Torrance to her hometown of Los Angeles; they watch an African American and Latino/Hispanic team, the East Compton Clovers, perform routines identical to theirs. Isis, the Clovers' team captain, angrily confronts the two. Torrance learns "Big Red" videotaped the Clovers' practice, and stole their routines. On the ride home, Torrance confesses to Missy she believes she is cursed after dropping the Spirit Stick at cheer camp. Isis informs Torrance of her plans to defeat the Toros at the regional and national championships. The Clovers never attended because they couldn't afford the fees. After Torrance tells the Toros about the routines, the team votes in favor of using the current routine to win; Torrance reluctantly agrees. At the Toros' next home game, Isis and her teammates perform the Toros' routine in front of the whole school, humiliating them. The Toros realize they have to learn a different routine. In desperation, they employ a professional choreographer named Sparky Polastri to provide one, as suggested by Aaron. But, at the Regionals, the team scheduled immediately before the Toros performs the routine they practiced. Torrance speaks to a competition official, and learns Polastri provided the routine to other California squads. As the defending champions, the Toros are granted their place in Nationals, but Torrance is warned a new routine will be expected. Torrance, crushed by her failure to lead the squad successfully, considers quitting. Cliff encourages and supports her, intensifying their growing attraction. Aaron says she is not leadership material, and recommends she step down from her position, selling her out to Torrance's rivals, Courtney and Whitney. After Cliff sees Torrance and Aaron together, he severs his friendship with Torrance, to her distress. But her confidence is re-newed by Cliff's encouragement, and she convinces her unhappy squad to create an innovative new routine instead, as the original routine was stolen from an all black cheer squad. She dumps Aaron, but Cliff refuses to forgive her. Meanwhile, the Clovers are unable to compete at Nationals due to financial problems. This prompts Torrance to get her dad's company to sponsor the Clovers, but Isis rejects the funding, and gets her team to Nationals by appealing to a talk show host. In the finals, the Toros place second, due to the fact they change the routine so they do not rip off another cheer squad, the Clovers win. However, after the Nationals, Torrance and Isis respect each other. Cliff forgives Torrance as they share a romantic kiss. 

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Helius (Willy Fritsch) is an entrepreneur with an interest in space travel. He seeks out his friend Professor Mannfeldt (Klaus Pohl), a visionary who wrote a treatise claiming that there was probably much gold on the Moon, only to be ridiculed by his peers. Helius recognizes the value of Mannfeldt's work. However, a gang of evil businessmen have also taken an interest in Mannfeldt's theories, and send a spy (Fritz Rasp) who identifies himself as "Walter Turner". Meanwhile, Helius's assistant Windegger (Gustav von Wangenheim) has announced his engagement to Helius's other assistant, Friede (Gerda Maurus). Helius, who secretly loves Friede, avoids their engagement party. On his way home from his meeting with Professor Mannfeldt, Helius is mugged by henchmen of the gang. They steal the research that Professor Mannfeldt had entrusted to Helius, and also burgle Helius's home, taking other valuable material. Turner then presents Helius with an ultimatum: the gang know he is planning a voyage to the Moon; either he includes them in the project, or they will sabotage it and destroy his rocket, which is named Friede. Reluctantly, Helius agrees to their terms. The rocket team is assembled: Helius; Professor Mannfeldt and his pet mouse Josephine; Windegger; Friede; and Turner. After Friede blasts off, the team discovers that Gustav (Gustl Gstettenbaur), a young boy who has befriended Helius, has stowed away, along with his collection of science fiction pulp magazines. During the journey, Windegger emerges as a coward, and Helius's feelings for Friede begin to become known to her, creating a romantic triangle. They reach the far side of the Moon and find it has a breathable atmosphere, per the theories of Peter Andreas Hansen, who is mentioned near the beginning of the film. Mannfeldt discovers gold, proving his theory. When confronted by Turner, Mannfeldt falls to his death in a crevasse. Turner attempts to hijack the rocket, and in the struggle, he is shot and killed. Gunfire damages the oxygen tanks, and they come to the grim realization that there is not enough oxygen for all to make the return trip. One person must remain on the Moon. Helius and Windegger draw straws to see who must stay and Windegger loses. Seeing Windegger's anguish, Helius decides to drug Windegger and Friede with a last drink together and take Windegger's place, letting Windegger return to Earth with Friede. Friede senses that something is in the wine. She pretends to drink and then retires to the compartment where her cot is located, closes and locks the door. Windegger drinks the wine, becoming sedated. Helius makes Gustav his confidant and the new pilot for the ship. Helius watches it depart, then starts out for the survival camp originally prepared for Windegger. He discovers that Friede has decided to stay with him on the Moon. They embrace, and Helius weeps into her shoulder while Friede strokes his hair and whispers words of comfort to him. 

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Baise-moi tells the story of Nadine and Manu who go on a violent spree against a society in which they feel marginalized. Nadine is a part-time sex worker, and Manu a slacker who does anything—including occasional porn film acting—to get by in her small town in southern France. One day, Manu and her friend, a drug addict, are accosted in the park by three men, who take them to a garage and gang-rape them. While her friend struggles, screams, and fights against the rapists, Manu lies still with a detached look, which troubles the man raping her, who soon gives up. When her friend asks Manu how she could act so detached, she replies that she "can't prevent anyone from penetrating her pussy", so she didn't leave anything precious in there. Manu then returns to her brother's house, and does not tell him what has happened, but noticing bruises on her neck, he realizes. He gets out a gun and asks Manu who was responsible, but when she refuses to tell him, he calls her a "slut" and implies that she actually enjoyed being raped. In response, picking up the discarded pistol, Manu shoots him in the head. Meanwhile, Nadine returns home and has an argument with her roommate, whom she strangles and kills, before leaving with their rent money. Nadine suffers another emotional setback when she meets her best friend, a drug dealer, in another town, but he is shot and killed while out obtaining drugs with a prescription she forged for him. Later that night, having missed the last train, Nadine meets Manu at the railway station. Manu says she has a car, if Nadine will drive for her. They soon realize that they share common feelings of anger, and embark on a violent and sexually charged road trip together. In need of money, the girls hold up a shop and also kill a woman at a cash machine. In a stolen car, they are pulled over for a random check by police, whom they kill. Another woman, who was also being checked and saw the murders, flees with them. The women stay over at their new friend's house, whose brother provides the address and details of an architect with whom he has had trouble. The women trick their way into the architect's house and kill him. Finally, after this spree of murder and sexual activity, the two women enter a swingers' club. One of the patrons makes a racist comment to Manu. The women kill most of the patrons there, and use a gun to anally penetrate the racist man, finally shooting him. The pair discuss what they have done, and agree that it has all been pointless because nothing has changed in them. During their spree, the duo's crimes are reported by the press, and become a point of fascination for the entire country, with some people actually supporting them, and others afraid of them. When Manu enters a roadside tire shop to get some coffee, she is shot by the shop owner, who is then shot by Nadine outside. Nadine takes Manu's body to a forest and burns it, before driving to a beach. With tears in her eyes, Nadine puts the gun to her head, intending to commit suicide, but gets arrested by the police before she can do so. 

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The series revolves around the adventures of the Neko Majin, a race of cat-creatures who enjoy practical jokes and martial arts. At least two use Dragon Ball-style attacks such as the "Nekohameha", while one in particular, named "Z", wears an outfit like Dragon Balls Son Goku, and carries a nyoi-bo. As the series transitions to Neko Majin Z, it becomes increasingly intertwined with the Dragon Ball world as regular characters join the cast, including an overweight Saiyan named Onio, and Frieza's son Kuriza. There are also guest appearances by Vegeta, Majin Buu, Son Goku and his family members. 

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The story is focused on the main character, Tetsunosuke Ichimura, who is an energetic, short and very childlike fifteen-year-old (16 in the manga). He and his older brother Tatsunosuke are left to fend for themselves after the vicious murder of their parents. While Tetsunosuke wants to get revenge, his pacifist brother is not so inclined. "Tatsu" joins a special police force dubbed the Shinsengumi, as an accountant to earn a living, his brother "Tetsu" wishes to join as a soldier to seek his revenge. The story chronicles Tetsu's trials and tribulations as a struggling page craving redemption. He develops relationships with all the legendary members of the Shinsengumi army helping them with their various struggles as he constantly battles his own against himself. At the story's climax, Tetsu discovers himself and the overwhelming responsibility the power he is searching for holds. 

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In order to eliminate local crime, a town council signs a contract with a demon, intending that the demon devour anyone who breaks the law after 11pm. 

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Kristy Thomas, president of "The Baby-Sitters Club", decides to open a day camp for their clients. Her best friend, Mary Anne Spier, along with Mary Anne's stepsister Dawn Schafer, offer their parents' backyard to serve as the campsite. All of the club members (Kristy Thomas, Mary Anne Spier, Dawn Schafer, Claudia Kishi, Stacey McGill, Mallory Pike, and Jessi Ramsey) vow to keep a close eye on the kids. Meanwhile, Kristy faces problems when she meets her estranged father (who abandoned her family seven years ago and started a new family in California), and faces a dilemma about telling her friends and family about this. Mary Anne is the only one she tells, and she too is under pressure as the curiosity of her friends grows. Claudia is forced to attend summer school because she failed science. Kristy promises to help Claudia study but, because she is seeing her father, she fails to keep her promise. Later on, the members of The Baby-Sitters Club, along with some of their clients, perform a rap song for Claudia who has to take a test; if she fails the test she would have to repeat the eighth grade and drop out of the club. Stacey has a crush on a 17-year-old boy named Luca. As their relationship ensues, she faces problems telling him about her diabetes, and later, her age. This is revealed after a trip to a New York City club, in which a bouncer does not allow her into a club because she is underage. Luca is outraged, unable to believe that Stacey is 13 years old. Meanwhile, Dawn must face her neighbor, Mrs. Haberman, who becomes increasingly upset because of the camp activities that are taking place next door. Kristy's 13th birthday comes and she has arranged to go to an amusement park with her father. Promising her friends she would make it to her own party, Kristy goes to meet her father, but he does not show up. She begins to walk home until her friends show up in Luca's car after Mary Anne tells them that Kristy's father came back. Luca drives the girls back to Mallory's parents' cabin and present Kristy with a half-melted birthday cake. As Stacey is saying goodbye to Luca, he tells her that he will be coming to Stoneybrook again next year. Delighted, Stacey tells him that she will be 14 years old when he returns. They share a kiss just before Luca departs. In return for making Mrs. Haberman's summer miserable, the girls give the greenhouse to her. Meanwhile, Kristy witnesses a miracle when Jackie Rodowsky hits his first home run, hitting Cokie Mason, who is sitting in a tree nearby, in the process. 

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In 1990, architect Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox) and his wife, Debra (Angela Bloomfield), are in a car accident. The accident kills Debra and Frank blames himself, abandoning his profession and the incomplete "dream house" he wanted to build for his wife. However, the accident caused Frank to develop the ability to see ghosts and he befriends three: 1970s street gangster Cyrus (Chi McBride), 1950s nerd Stuart (Jim Fyfe), and The Judge (John Astin), a gunslinger from the Old West. The ghosts haunt houses so Frank can then "exorcise" them for a fee. Most locals consider him a con man. Meanwhile, local physician Lucy Lynskey (Trini Alvarado) makes a house call for Patricia Bradley (Dee Wallace Stone), who accidentally cut herself with a knife. Lucy attempts to drive Patricia to the hospital, but Patricia's mother (Julianna McCarthy) refuses, saying that Patricia is not allowed to leave the house, because she is "not to be trusted". Intrigued, Lucy learns about Patricia's past from a documentary, which revealed that Patricia was the lover and accomplice of the notorious serial killer John Charles Bartlett (Jake Busey). Bartlett was an orderly at the Fairwater Sanitarium, where he gunned down twelve random people with Patricia's help and carved numbers into their foreheads, representing the order in which they were killed. As Bartlett is escorted away, he exhibits pride that he got a "score of twelve", which is "one more than Starkweather". Bartlett was later executed for his crimes, but Patricia was underage, so she escaped the death penalty, being sent to a psychiatric facility and later released. Later, Frank cons local health nut, Ray Lynskey (Peter Dobson), who is married to Lucy. The con goes as planned, but Frank is startled to see a glowing orange number appearing on Ray's forehead: "37". However, Frank is the only one who can see the number. Frank is confused because Debra had a similar number when she was found, except hers read "13". Shortly after, Ray dies of an apparent heart attack. Frank later discovers that the numbers represent who is going to die next, and the entity carrying out the killings appears to be the Grim Reaper. Frank's ability to foretell the murders puts him under suspicion with the police and FBI agent Milton Dammers (Jeffrey Combs), who is convinced Frank is responsible for the deaths. Frank is eventually arrested for the murder of newspaper editor Magda Rees-Jones (Elizabeth Hawthorne), despite the fact that he is innocent. Frank also tried in vain to prevent Magda's death with the help of his ghosts, and the Judge was dissolved as a result. Believing that Frank is innocent, Lucy investigates the murders and becomes a target of the Grim Reaper herself. She is attacked while visiting Frank in jail; but they escape with the help of Cyrus and Stuart, who are both dissolved in the process. Frank wants to commit suicide to stop the Grim Reaper, as he is powerless to fight a ghost as a human. Lucy helps Frank have a near-death experience by putting him into hypothermia and using barbiturates to stop his heart. Meanwhile, Dammers abducts Lucy so he can get to Frank, revealing that he had at one point been undercover with the Manson Family. In his ghostly form, Frank confronts the Grim Reaper and discovers that it is really an imposter: the ghost of Johnny Bartlett. Bartlett reveals his motive: to become the most prolific serial killer ever, and that he is still trying to add to his body count (and infamy) even after his death. Frank realizes that Bartlett's ghost, with Patricia's help, was responsible for Debra's death and the number on her brow. Frank is almost able to destroy Johnny's soul, but Lucy resuscitates Frank before they can do so, and they visit Patricia, hoping that she will aid them in stopping Johnny. Unknown to them, Patricia is still in love with Bartlett and has been orchestrating the murders with his ghost. Patricia even kills her own mother so she is free to kill with Johnny. Lucy and Frank trap Bartlett's spirit in his urn, which Patricia has kept. The pair make for the chapel of the now-abandoned psychiatric hospital hoping that hallowed ground will allow them to finally send Bartlett's soul to Hell and end his rampage once and for all. The two are pursued through the abandoned hospital by both Patricia and Dammers. Refusing to believe Frank's story, Dammers throws the urn away, releasing Bartlett's ghost again. Patricia kills Dammers with a shotgun and Bartlett's ghost and Patricia hunt down Frank and Lucy. With her shotgun empty, Patricia strangles Frank to death, but Frank in spirit form rips Patricia's spirit from her body, forcing Bartlett to follow them. Bartlett grabs Patricia's ghost, while Frank makes it to Heaven, where he is reunited with Cyrus, Stuart and Debra. Bartlett and Patricia's spirits claim they will now go back to claim more lives, but the portal to Heaven quickly changes to a demonic-looking appearance and they are both dragged to Hell by a giant worm-like creature. Frank learns it is not yet his time and is sent back to his body as Debra's spirit tells him to "be happy." Some time later, Frank and Lucy have fallen in love, Frank finally begins demolishing the unfinished dream house so he can build a new life with Lucy. While Frank and Lucy are watching the house be torn down with a celebratory picnic, Sheriff Perry (Troy Evans) arrives and reveals that they found a stash of ouija boards at Patricia's home, which she must have used to communicate with Johnny. With the whole situation having been cleared up, Frank tells the sheriff that he has a guardian angel now. Perry thinks Frank is just joking, but the morose ghost of Dammers is shown riding in the backseat of Perry's car. Lucy remarks that Dammers looks upset, revealing to Frank that she can see ghosts now as well. 

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Taking place seven years after the events of Dragonflight, the book opens with Menolly, youngest daughter of Masterfisher Yanus, Sea Holder of Half-Circle Seahold, in the fictional world of Pern. Menolly, a gifted young musician, has been assisting the Hold's ailing Harper Petiron in his duties to educate the Hold's children. After Petiron's death, however, a new Harper arrives as his replacement. Menolly's parents forbid her to reveal that she has been teaching the children in the interim, believing that music and particularly teaching are not a woman's place. To conceal her former role from the new Harper, Menolly is not allowed to play, sing, or compose, and her parents severely punish her for doing so. Unbeknownst to Menolly or her parents, prior to his death Petiron sent several of Menolly's original compositions to Masterharper Robinton at Harper Hall, where Robinton is now frantic to locate this mysterious new composer, though unaware that the composer is female. Frustrated and heartbroken, Menolly chooses to leave her Hold and live Holdless, a dangerous enterprise as flesh-eating Thread fall regularly on the area. Menolly finds a safe cave near the sea and makes it her new home. She also discovers a nest of the legendary fire-lizards, smaller versions of the giant dragons that defend Pern from Thread. She assists the fire-lizard queen in relocating her clutch to safety, thereby winning the creature's trust. Menolly is present when the clutch hatches and inadvertently Impresses nine hatchlings, forming a symbiotic, psychic bond with them and making herself responsible for their care. Feeding both her fire-lizards and herself is a full-time job, but Menolly is resourceful and content. She resumes her music and is delighted when her fire-lizards learn to harmonize with her songs. One day while gathering food for her fire-lizards, Menolly is caught on the edge of Threadfall. She attempts to race the leading edge back to the safety of her cave, lacerating the soles of her feet in the effort. A passing dragonrider rescues her at the last second and takes her to Benden Weyr, which is full of guests in preparation for a dragon hatching. Menolly is shocked to find others at the Weyr have fire-lizards and that the creatures' discovery and potential has become a point of deep interest to dragonriders. When Menolly's nine fire-lizards come looking for her, Menolly reluctantly admits that she accidentally Impressed them all, thus becoming the center of attention. Robinton, who is present at Benden for the Hatching, is intrigued that Menolly has taught her fire-lizards to sing. On the pretense of having Menolly show him her fire-lizards' ability, Robinton tricks her into performing one of the songs written by Petiron's mysterious apprentice, thus revealing that she is the composer. Menolly is overwhelmed when Robinton invites her to Harper Hall to become his apprentice and gladly accepts the offer. 

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Gilbert "Gil" Ivy (Sam Shepard) and his wife Jewell (Jessica Lange) have worked Jewell's family farm for years, and her father Otis (Wilford Brimley) does not want to see his family farm lost to foreclosure. However, low crop prices, interest on FHA loans, pressure by the FHA to reduce both the loan and operating expenditure, and a tornado all put pressure on the struggling family as they face hardship and the prospect of losing their home and livelihood. 

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Patsy Cline (Jessica Lange) is unhappily married and playing small-time gigs in the tri-state area consisting of Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland when she meets Charlie Dick (Ed Harris), whose charm and aggressive self-confidence catch her attention. Patsy is married but is planning to divorce. After her divorce, Patsy and Charlie marry, and she is free to pursue music, and, later, focus on raising their children. After Charlie gets drafted into the U.S. Army, Patsy focuses on singing more, and after joining forces with manager Randy Hughes, Patsy becomes a rising star on the country music scene. However, Patsy's success fuels her self-confidence, much to Charlie's annoyance, and he becomes increasingly physically and emotionally abusive as Patsy attempts to assert her independence. Patsy was at the peak of her popularity as one of the first great female stars of country music when she died in a plane crash on March 5, 1963, at the age of 30. 

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In 1863, where an alternate nineteenth century Europe has made tremendous strides in steam-powered technologies, scientist Lloyd Steam and his son Edward have succeeded in discovering a pure mineral water in Iceland which believe can be harnessed as a nearly unlimited power source for steam engines. An experiment in Russian Alaska goes terribly wrong, with Edward being engulfed in freezing gases, but results in the creation of a spherical device. Three years later, back in England, Edward's son, Ray Steam, is an avid young inventor who works at a textile mill in Manchester as a maintenance boy, often working on a personal steam-powered monowheel at home. While he usually lives alone with his mother, his friend Emma and her brother Thomas have recently been sent over to stay until their mother returns from a business trip. Ray's life is suddenly disrupted by the arrival of a package from his grandfather Lloyd; the spherical device, along with its schematics and a letter instructing him to guard it. Then, Alfred and Jason, two members of a company called "The O'Hara Foundation" arrive and attempt to steal the sphere, but Lloyd appears, stating that the device killed Ray's father and bids Ray to flee from the men and deliver the device to Robert Stephenson. Ray flees, pursued by O'Hara agents in a large steam automotive, eventually thwarting it on a railway line by putting it in the way of an incoming train. By coincidence, Ray encounters Stephenson on the train, who was on his way to Manchester to meet with the elder Dr. Steam. However, as the train approaches the station, an O'Hara zeppelin attacks the train and kidnaps Ray, taking the device with them. The zeppelin takes Ray to London, where preparations are being made for the 1866 Great Exhibition. Ray encounters Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled granddaughter of the Foundation's head chairman, and Edward, who is revealed to be alive but severely scarred and mechanized from his injuries in Alaska. He takes Ray and Scarlett on a tour of the "Steam Castle"; an elaborate facility entirely powered by the compressed gas in three devices called "Steam Balls," one of which was the device sent to Ray. Ray is enamored both by the castle, and his father's vision of using it to enlighten mankind, and quickly recruited to help complete the castle. He also begins developing a love/hate friendship with Scarlett, who has become attracted to him. While helping to finish the castle, Ray encounters Lloyd again, who was captured by O'Hara but has escaped from his cell and is attempting to sabotage the castle, revealing that the Foundation's true intentions for the exhibition is to sell weapons to Britain's enemies. Lloyd shows him the collection of weapons, and Ray struggles with the moral dichotomy of being a scientist - of how to contribute to the world without giving into vanity, conveying his conflict towards his father, and the conflict brewing between Edward and Lloyd. The two eventually reach the core section of the castle, and manage to pry away one of the Steam Balls before security surrounds them. Lloyd is shot by Alfred and recaptured, while Ray makes another elaborate escape with the ball. The next morning, the exhibition is underway, and Ray has reunited with Robert Stephenson, giving him the ball and the knowledge he acquired in captivity. An assault on the castle is then met with a demonstration by the Foundation of its new steam-powered weapons, which turn the exhibition into a war zone. Ray becomes aware of his folly when Stephenson uses the ball to enhance his own company's battle tanks (which resemble the real-life Hornsby Chain Tractor of 1905), leading him to realize that he had no better intentions than the Foundation's. Edward, eager to show the world the castle, enters the observation/control room and orders the engineers to "launch" it, causing the structure to rise and shed its decorative outer shell, revealing a monstrous floating fortress, the steam generated by the structure's gigantic propulsion jets flooding the city and freezing everything in its path. Ray steals the ball again to create a makeshift rocket vehicle, and attempts to gain entry as the British Royal Navy and Stephenson attempt to battle the floating fortress. Scarlett, who has since become worried about Ray, searches for him, but ends up lost in the depths of the castle before eventually finding her way to the control room. After defeating Jason, who flies a steam-powered flying machine, Ray makes entry as well, and Lloyd (having escaped again) confronts Edward about his actions before shooting him with a stolen gun, and having his body disappear in a cloud of steam. With the castle steered off course from the battle, the structure has become unstable and threatens to explode over the city. Lloyd and Ray rush to redirect the castle over the Thames, defeating Alfred, who is controlling a pair of gigantic construction claws in the process. At the last minute Edward, whose metal body repelled the gunshot, re-emerges from the steam and assists them. Ray re-installs the stolen steam ball, and makes his way to the control room to make a final escape with Scarlett on an emergency jet pack, while Edward and Lloyd halt the machine over the Thames and escape as well. The castle eventually detonates in a spectacular explosion, sparing the city of most of the destruction. The ending montage reveals Ray returning home, and later becoming a global superhero (aka Steamboy) using the jet pack gear from the castle; his grandfather Lloyd introducing Ray to electricity and finally passing away; the Great War being fought with paratroopers and zeppelins; his father Eddie founding a corporate conglomerate; and Scarlett maturing and becoming a famous pilot. 

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Chicago defense attorney Anne Talbot learns that her father, Hungarian immigrant Michael J. Laszlo, is in danger of having his U.S. citizenship revoked. The reasons are that he stands accused of war crimes. He insists that it is a case of mistaken identity. Against the advice of her former father-in-law, corporate attorney Harry Talbot, Anne resolves to defend her father in court. One of her reasons is how deeply her son, Mikey, loves and admires his grandfather. According to prosecuting attorney Jack Burke of the Office of Special Investigations, Michael Laszlo is not, as he claims, a simple political refugee, regular churchgoer, and family man. Rather, he is "Mishka," the former commander of an Arrow Cross death squad. During the Siege of Budapest, Mishka's unit sadistically tortured and murdered scores of Hungarian Jews, Roma, and their Gentile protectors. To Anne, these allegations are absurd. The loving single father who raised her could not possibly have committed such crimes. Later, Jack Burke tells Anne that her father has no conscience, zero empathy, and that his love for his family is a façade. An enraged Anne replies by accusing Burke of murdering his recently deceased wife. Meanwhile, her father's accounts reveal large payments to a fellow Hungarian immigrant named Tibor Zoldan. Her father claims these were loans to help a destitute friend and which he was unable to repay before his death. As the hearing unfolds before a Jewish judge named Irwin Silver, the crimes of Mishka's unit are described in grisly testimony by the few who survived contact with them. All the witnesses identify Anne's father as the man who tortured them. Equally damning is an Arrow Cross identification card that bears his photograph and the name, "Laszlo Miklos." An FBI agent initially confirms its authenticity. Her father claims that this is all a frame-up by Hungary's then Communist government and its secret police, the ÁVO. He says that it is retaliation for his protest against the U.S. tour of a Hungarian ballet troupe several years earlier. Anne locates a Soviet defector who testifies about the KGB's program to produce flawless forgeries of such documents to frame anti-Communists in the West. The defector further explains that this technique was shared with every secret police service in the Soviet Bloc. He explains that the Hungarian ÁVO was "very interested" in this tactic. This revelation, combined with Anne's questioning the reliability of witnesses who still live under a police state, throws Burke's case into serious doubt. Burke then announces that there is a witness who can testify that Michael Laszlo is "Mishka." Due to his medical problems, however, he is incapable of leaving Budapest. Anne, Burke, and Judge Silver travel to Hungary. Anne's father refuses, claiming that the Communists will assassinate him if he returns. Before her departure, Anne's legal assistant brings more details about Tibor Zoldan, who died in a hit-and-run car accident. She further declares "It feels like Tibor Zoldan was blackmailing your father." She gives Anne the address of Tibor's sister Magda. At her Budapest hotel, Anne is visited by a mysterious man who claims to be a friend of her father. He leaves a box with a hidden folder of documents. The next day, after hearing the damning testimony of the witness, Anne produces the documents — signed past affidavits in which the witness had identified three completely different men as "Mishka." Despite the pleading of Burke and the witness, Judge Silver dismisses the prosecution's case. A devastated Burke tells Anne that, while it is too late to save the victims, he thinks that it is important to remember what happened to them. He accuses Anne of living in a fantasy world and urges her to visit the bridge where Mishka threw his victims into the Danube River. At the time, the Red Army was storming Berlin and the Second World War was effectively over, yet Hungarians were still massacring their Jewish countrymen. An infuriated Anne screams "Some Hungarians! Not my father!" As Anne's local guide is driving her back to her hotel, they casually pass through Széchenyi Lánchíd, which is the bridge mentioned several times earlier in the court testimonies as the place of Mishka's executions. Anne asks the driver to stop so she can have a walk. After looking down on the river and seeing the place of the atrocities, Anne takes a cab to Magda Zoldan's apartment. Anne introduces herself saying she knew Tibor, so Magda welcomes her warmly and mentions that the only thing she has of Tibor's is his wallet, sent to her by the Chicago Police Department. She produces from it a pawn shop ticket. Saying that she has little else to remember her brother, Magda implores Anne to retrieve whatever Tibor pawned and mail it to her. Before leaving, a horrified Anne sees a picture of young Tibor with a characteristic scar on his left face, and realizes he had been Mischka's Arrow Cross partner in the atrocities, also mentioned several times in the testimonies. Back in Chicago, Anne visits the pawn shop and retrieves Tibor's music box. Anne winds it up and watches it go, taken in by its charm. Then, Anne sobs inconsolably as the music box dispenses a set of old black-and-white photographs. They depict her youthful father in an Arrow Cross uniform -- sadistically torturing and murdering Jewish men, women, and children. At a party at Harry Talbot's mansion to celebrate the dismissal of the case, Anne confronts her father, accusing him of being Mishka and of running down Tibor Zoldan with his car. With bottomless self-pity, her father laments that "the Communists" have poisoned his daughter against him. Visibly sickened, Anne asks her father why he cannot just tell her the truth. In the film's climax, Anne tells her father that she does not ever want herself or Mikey to ever see him again. Her father calmly explains that Mikey will never believe her. As Anne watches in silent horror, "Mishka" goes out to play with his grandson. Anne is then seen typing a letter to Jack Burke, saying that she went to the Danube. She encloses Tibor Zoldan's photographs and negatives in the envelope. Anne picks up a newspaper with a front-page headline: "Mike Laszlo: War Criminal! Justice Department Releases Atrocity Photos." The film fades out as Anne stops Mikey from going to school and sits down to talk to him. 

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The Fabulous Baker Boys, Jack and Frank, are brothers living in Seattle, making a living in lounges and music bars, their gimmick being that they play intricate jazz and pop-flavored duets on matching grand pianos. Frank handles the business aspect while Jack, single, attractive, and more talented as a player, feels disillusioned and bored with the often hackneyed material they use. Nonetheless, he is able to live a comfortable and responsibility-free existence because of Frank's management, sleeping where and with whom he pleases. Frank has a wife and family he adores, but Jack has no personal connections in his private life, other than Eddie, his soulful but aging Black Labrador, and Nina, the lonely child of a single mother living in his building, who walks Eddie and takes piano lessons from Jack. In all other respects, professionally and personally, Jack's life is a series of empty one-night stands. Now and again, he plays the challenging music he really cares about at a local jazz club. Concerned over the way they keep losing gigs, the Baker Boys hold auditions for a female singer to join the outfit, ending up with the beautiful but eccentric Susie Diamond, a former escort with unusual charisma, a sultry singing voice, and emotional baggage she keeps well hidden most of the time. She arrives late for the audition, cockily irreverent of their professional reputation, and ticks Frank off by saying she has an intuition he will hire her anyway—but overcomes his reservations with her impassioned performance of "More Than You Know", with Jack accompanying her, clearly more impressed with Susie's singing (and Susie herself) than he wants to admit. After a rocky start, the new act becomes unexpectedly successful, leading to bigger gigs and better money, but Frank is worried that Jack will ruin it by sleeping with Susie, having noted the growing attraction between the two, and being well aware of his brother's effect on the opposite sex. Jack and Susie circle each other warily from gig to gig, neither wanting to make the first move. In the meantime, the normally cool and emotionally distant Jack has a stark revelation of how fragile his world really is when Eddie has to spend the night at an animal hospital. He needs to have several teeth removed, a procedure that could easily kill the elderly dog, who is, Jack suddenly realizes, his only real friend in the world. The now sought-after trio (and Eddie, still recovering from surgery) head out of town to play an extended engagement at a grand old-style hotel. Frank has to leave suddenly, when one of his kids has a minor accident. Without him to act as chaperone, Susie and Jack give in to their feelings after playing a sizzling duet of "Makin' Whoopee" at the hotel's New Year's Eve celebration. Susie opens up to Jack about her past at the escort service, sleeping with clients simply because they were nice to her. She tries to tell him how good a player he is, but he is unwilling to admit his regrets to her. The romance is uneasy and off-kilter from the start, and does not last long. Back in Seattle, there is new tension within the act, as Frank senses what has happened between Jack and Susie. Both rebel against Frank's creative control, which has them performing crowd-pleasers like "Feelings" every night, instead of the jazz standards they prefer. After she spends the night with Jack at his apartment (leading to an embarrassing encounter with Nina), Susie reveals that at the hotel she got a lucrative offer from a man in the catfood business, to sing jingles for television, which would mean leaving The Baker Boys. She later takes the job when Jack, wounded she would even consider going (and thinking about the conventioneers she used to know as an escort), refuses to admit how he feels, and acts like her departure is of no concern. As a parting shot, she tells him he is selling himself on the cheap as much as she ever did, by working a cheesy lounge act instead of developing his talent. Jack and Frank quarrel over Susie's departure and the increasingly embarrassing gigs Frank has been landing them. They get into a fight, with Jack nearly breaking Frank's fingers in frustrated rage, then storming off saying he cannot pretend anymore. Jack later blows up at Nina, driving her away—but goes after her to apologize—and learns that she is getting a new stepfather, so he will not be such a big part of her life anymore. Now ready to pursue the solo career his loyalty to Frank and delayed maturity had kept on the back burner, Jack goes to Frank's house to mend fences. Frank accepts Jack's decision to go his own way, and says he will switch to giving piano lessons at home—in his mind, he was simply helping his brother lead the carefree swinging single life that he secretly envied, and had thought Jack wanted. They reminisce happily about the early days of their act, and play a riotous chorus of "You're Sixteen", knowing now their connection is unbreakable, no matter what happens. Jack goes to see Susie, who is not enjoying the jingle business much, to apologize to her about the way he behaved. She is not ready to give him another chance, but they part as friends, Jack telling her he has an intuition they will see each other again (echoing her earlier prediction that the brothers would hire her for the act). She walks off to her job, with him watching until she is nearly out of sight. As the credits roll, the soundtrack plays Michelle Pfeiffer and Dave Grusin's rendition of "My Funny Valentine". 

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Lilly Dillon is a veteran con artist. She works for Bobo Justus, a mob bookmaker, making large cash bets at race tracks to lower the odds of longshots. On her way to La Jolla for the horse races, she stops in Los Angeles to visit her son Roy, a small-time grifter whom she has not seen in eight years. She finds him in pain and bleeding internally after one of his victims caught him pulling a petty scam and hit him in the stomach with a bat. When medical assistance finally comes, Lilly confronts the doctor, threatening to have him killed if her son dies. At the hospital, Lilly meets and takes an instant dislike to Roy's girlfriend, Myra Langtry, who is a few years older than her son. Lilly urges her son to quit the grift, saying he literally does not have the stomach for it. Because she leaves late for La Jolla, she misses a race where the winner was paying 70 to 1. For this mistake, Bobo punches her in the stomach and burns her hand with a cigar. He insinuates that he will beat her with a towel filled with oranges, causing her permanent damage if she ever drops the ball again, but he gives her $10,000 anyway. Myra, like Roy and Lilly, plays all the angles. When her landlord demands payment of late rent, she uses her sex appeal to lure him into bed and forget the rent. She makes a similar offer to a jeweler to get what she wants for a gem she is trying to pawn. Upon leaving the hospital, Roy takes Myra to La Jolla for the weekend. On the train, she notices his conning a group of sailors in a rigged dice game. Myra reveals to Roy that she is also a grifter and is looking for a new partner for a long con. She describes her association with a con man named Cole and how they took advantage of wealthy marks in business cons, including a greedy oil investor, Gloucester Hebbing. A flashback scene in a plush office building culminates in a fake FBI raid with a fake shooting of Myra to discourage Hebbing from going to the police. Roy, who insists on working only short-term cons, resists the proposition, fearing she may try to dupe him. Myra, seeing Lilly's power over Roy, accuses him of having an incestuous interest in Lilly. Infuriated, Roy strikes her. Myra then plans her revenge. She lets it be known that Lilly has been stealing from Bobo over the years and stashing money in the trunk of her car. Lilly is warned by a friend and flees. Myra follows with the intention of killing her. Roy is called by the Phoenix police to come and identify his mother's body, found in a motel room with the face disfigured by a gunshot wound. While identifying it as Lilly's, he silently notes that there is no cigar burn on the corpse's hand. Coming home, he finds Lilly trying to steal his money. Lilly reveals that she shot Myra in self-defense at the motel and arranged the scene to appear as though Myra's body was actually Lilly's. Roy refuses to let Lilly take his money. Lilly desperately pleads with him, then attempts to seduce him, even going so far as to tempt Roy by claiming he is not really her son. Roy is disgusted and rejects her. Lilly angrily swings a briefcase at Roy just as he is taking a drink which breaks his drinking glass and jams glass shards into his neck. Roy's artery is cut and he's bleeding profusely. Her son bleeds to death on the floor. Lilly sobs as she gathers up the money, then gets into her car and disappears into the night. 

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The novel revolves around movie actress Suzanne Vale as she tries to put her life together after a drug overdose. The book is divided into five main sections: The prologue is in epistolary form, with postcards written by Suzanne to her brother, friend, and grandmother. The novel continues the epistolary form, consisting of first- person narrative excerpts from a journal Suzanne kept while coming to terms with her drug addiction and rehab experiences. ("Maybe I shouldn't have given the guy who pumped my stomach my phone number, but who cares? My life is over anyway.") In time Suzanne's entries begin to alternate with the experiences of Alex, another addict in the same clinic. This section ends with Suzanne being discharged after successfully completing treatment. The second section opens with dialogue between Suzanne and film producer Jack Burroughs on their first date. It then changes to alternating monologues from Suzanne (addressed to her therapist) and Jack (addressed to his lawyer, who serves much the same purpose as Suzanne's therapist). Their relationship continues in this vein – all dialogue/monologue. The last three sections are traditional third-person narrative. The third section describes the initial days of the first movie Suzanne made after her treatment. For convenience, Suzanne stays with her grandparents while the movie is made. She is chided for not relaxing herself on-screen, and notes that if she could relax she wouldn't be in therapy. This becomes a running gag among the actors and crew. The section ends with the crew mooning her on her birthday, and Suzanne asserts that "there isn't enough therapy" to help her with that experience. The fourth section shows a week of Suzanne's "normal" life: working out, business meetings, an industry party, and going with a friend to a television studio for a talk show. She meets an author in the green room and gives him her phone number. The fifth section encapsulates her relationship with the author, bringing the story to the anniversary of her overdose. The epilogue consists of a letter from Suzanne to the doctor who pumped her stomach, who had recently contacted her. She notes that she is still off drugs and doing well. She is flattered that he inquires as to whether she is "available for dating", but she is seeing someone. The book ends on a bittersweet note: she knows she has a good life, but doesn't trust it. Unlike the movie, most of the conflict in the book is internal, as Suzanne is learning to handle her life without the prop of drugs. Suzanne's mother appears in very few scenes, while Suzanne is in rehab: > My mother is probably sort of disappointed at how I turned out, but she > doesn't show it. She came by today and brought me a satin and velvet quilt. > I'm surprised I was able to detox without it. I was nervous about seeing > her, but it went okay. She thinks I blame her for my being here. I mainly > blame my dealer, my doctor, and myself, and not necessarily in that order. > [...] She washed my underwear and left. Later Suzanne talks with her on the phone, but it is not stressful. 

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On the planet Mars, there existed a race of anthropomorphic mice who enjoyed motorsports and had a very similar culture and society to that of human beings. At some point in time they were all but wiped out by the Plutarkians, an alien race of obese, foul-smelling, worm- eating, fish-like humanoids who plunder other planets' natural resources because they have wasted all of their own. Three survivors: Throttle, Modo and Vinnie, manage to find a spaceship and escape the Plutarkian takeover but they are soon shot down by a Plutarkian warship and end up crash-landing on Earth in the city of Chicago, specifically in the scoreboard of Quigley Field. There they meet a charming female mechanic named Charlene "Charley" Davidson and discover that the Plutarkians have come to Earth to steal its natural resources. The Biker Mice investigate the crumbling ghetto of the windy city and soon discover that Chicago's leading industrialist, Lawrence Limburger, is actually a Plutarkian who disguises himself as a human, plotting to ransack Earth's resources to send to his own dying planet. Limburger enlists two henchmen, mad scientist Dr. Karbunkle and the idiotic Greasepit to help him steal Earth's natural resources and send them to Plutark with the help of some supervillains that they transport from another location in the galaxy. The Biker Mice dedicate themselves as heroic vigilantes destined to stop Limburger's evil schemes. The most frequent sign of victory is destroying Limburger's tall tower, forcing him to constantly spend money and time to rebuild it by the next episode. 

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The story of a traditionally minded family living in the Country Club District of Kansas City, Missouri, during the 1930s and 1940s. The Bridges grapple with changing mores and expectations. Mr. Bridge (Paul Newman) is a lawyer who resists his children's rebellion against the conservative values he holds dear. Mrs. Bridge (Joanne Woodward) labors to maintain a Pollyanna view of the world, against her husband's emotional distance and her children's eagerness to adopt a world view more modern than her own. 

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A deadly plague is ravaging the Earth, known as the Purple Death because of a purple spot left on victims' foreheads. Flash Gordon learns that Ming the Merciless is behind the plague when he spots one of Ming's spaceships spreading the "Death Dust" in the Earth's atmosphere. Flash Gordon, along with Dr. Alexis Zarkov and Dale Arden, return to the planet Mongo to find a possible cure, first seeking the assistance of their old friend Prince Barin. The trio continue to battle Ming and his allies, led by henchman Captain Torch, who has been charged with stopping the Earthlings by any means. The three eventually find an antidote, called Polarite, in Mongo's remote northern Kingdom of Frigia. They must now get the cure back to Earth in sufficient quantities to stop the ravaging plague. Ming sends in an army of robot bombs, and he succeeds in capturing Zarkov and Dale. After their capture, Flash must return to Earth to distribute the antidote by rocketship, the very same way the original Death Dust was first spread. Upon his return to Mongo, Flash is able to free Zarkov and Dale. They continue their struggles against Ming, Captain Torch, and his men through a series of close encounters, deadly escapes, and rescues, all the while continuing to thwart Ming and his allies. Ming and his minions are eventually locked away by one of his men in the high control tower of his castle. Unknown to them, Flash is piloting a rocketship that is speeding directly toward that tower. He parachutes away just in the nick of time, and in a daring aerial maneuver Flash is successful in boarding Barrin's nearby rocketship, which has Dale and Zarkov aboard. Flash's unmanned spaceship is actually a flying bomb, having been loaded with highly volatile Solarite. Its rapid forward momentum carries it directly into the castle's control tower, where the large explosion that follows ends Ming's tyrannical reign forever. Prince Barin soon takes his rightful place as the peaceful ruler of Mongo. Ming's last words to Flash were "I am the universe!" Zarkov observes that with Ming's death "Flash Gordon has conquered the universe". 

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In the early 1990s, retired entertainer Dixie Leonard has a commitment to attend a Hollywood ceremony being televised live to honor her and her longtime show-biz partner Eddie Sparks. When a young man from the TV show comes to pick her up, Dixie balks and explains what brought Eddie and her together, as well as what drove them apart. The majority of the film is an extended flashback. Dixie's story begins during World War II when she receives an offer to entertain the troops overseas as part of Eddie's act. Dixie is an instant hit with the boys in uniform, but Eddie wants her gone, ostensibly because he finds her kind of humor too coarse, but in actuality because she stole the show by topping his jokes. Dixie doesn't care for him much, either, but fellow entertainers and her joke-writer uncle Art persuade her to stay. Eddie wins her over, particularly by reuniting Dixie with her soldier husband on stage. However, later in the war, Dixie's husband dies in battle. Despite her distaste for Eddie, Dixie continues working with him back in the States...mostly to support herself and her son Danny. Eddie is married with daughters, yet he becomes a proud surrogate father to Danny. As the Korean War breaks out, Eddie announces on stage that he and Dixie will be performing for the US troops there, without having told Dixie of his plans first. In revenge, Dixie announces that Eddie made a $100,000 donation ($ today) to the Red Cross. Reluctantly, she travels to Korea with him. On their way to the camp, they encounter a unit of soldiers that has been ambushed. Dixie cares for a wounded soldier but cannot save him: he is pronounced dead on arrival at the field hospital. Dixie and Eddie appear to spend the night together. At the Christmas dinner, a fight ensues after Art announces to everybody that Eddie has fired him for being a communist sympathizer. In the meantime, Danny has grown up to be a soldier like his father, and is deployed to Vietnam. At Art's suggestion, Dixie eventually agrees to perform there for Christmas with Eddie. On their way to the camp, the performers are warned of the camp possibly being attacked, because of which they are to be flown out immediately after their performance. Before going on stage, Dixie and Eddie meet Danny, who reveals to them the barbarity that is spreading among his comrades. The show begins with the performance of a dancer, who starts getting harassed by the soldiers, and only Eddie's intervention prevents the situation from getting out of control. Dixie comes on stage and makes some cynical remarks about the soldiers, then sings “In My Life”. While she is still on stage, the camp is attacked in a mortar barrage. Dixie and Eddie find shelter, but Danny is killed right in front of them; both mourn deeply for him. Dixie has not forgiven Eddie for his part in all this, and they have another heated argument in the dressing room. Eddie goes out on stage alone. But, at the last minute, because he speaks of their joint loss in Vietnam, Dixie joins him on stage for one last song and dance, before appearing to accept their mutual love for one another. 

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May-Alice Culhane, a New York daytime actress, lies in a hospital bed, confused and scared because she is unable to sit up. She attempts to press the call button but ends up switching on the TV, which happens to be playing a scene from the soap opera featuring her. Culhane has been left paralyzed after an accident on her way to getting her legs waxed. With no other options, she returns to her family's old and empty home in Louisiana, where she drinks hard, is unsatisfied with every caregiver, and wallows in self-pity. Her outlook begins to change with the arrival of Chantelle, a nurse with her own problems. The two gradually find a heartfelt connection with each other, and as a result, their lives subtly change. 

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In 1962, Major Hank Marshall (Jones) and his wife, Carly (Lange), are having marital problems because of the pressures of his job and her mental illness. Hank is a nuclear engineer who favors underground nuclear testing, an initiative code-named "Blue Sky", as opposed to above- ground, open-air detonations. Carly is a free spirit who appears to be mentally unbalanced and who is slowly being suffocated by domestic torpor and encroaching age. Her behavior embarrasses him, especially given the restrictions that prevail within a military base. Their move from Hawaii to an isolated base in Alabama alarms their oldest daughter, Alex (Locane), and sends Carly into a violent tantrum. The following day, Hank has his first meeting with base commander Colonel Vince Johnson (Boothe), who rebuffs his underground testing initiative despite strong scientific support. Meanwhile, Vince's wife Vera (Snodgress) welcomes Carly and invites her to a party organized by the base officers' wives. Carly gets drunk at the party and demonstrates exotic dancing skills. Vera begs her husband to do something about her, to which Vince agrees but says he'll have to get Hank out of the way first. Alex starts dating Vince's son Glen (O'Donnell) and on their first date finds what she takes to be a dud grenade. It explodes, alerting the whole base to their relationship and giving Vince more reason to get rid of Hank. Carly is invited by the other officers' wives to join them for a dance recital, and fills her time rehearsing for it. Hank is sent to the Nevada Test Site to supervise the first underground test under Lieutenant Colonel Robert Jennings (McClendon). During the first test, Hank notices two cowboys in the test area and attempts to have Robert abort the test, but Robert refuses, explicitly telling Hank that he is not concerned with the cowboys' health or their lives, and sends Hank back to Alabama. While Hank is away, Alex and Glen discover Vince sent Hank away just so he could have an affair with Carly. Hank learns of the affair at the dance recital and reacts violently, which results in Carly being pushed out a window and requiring hospitalization. Hank is arrested, and Vince offers Carly a choice: Hank can be court-martialed or she can have him committed to a psychiatric hospital. When Hank learns what his wife did, he explains to her that he wanted to be court martialed in order to bring the incident with the cowboys out in public. He quickly realizes that Vince set him up, but MPs take him to the hospital before he can do anything about it. The hospital keeps him so heavily sedated he is unable to leave. Carly, suspecting there is a reason for this, digs through Hank's papers and finds the report about the two cowboys. She drives across the country with her daughters and finds the cowboys with visible radiation sickness. She begs them to bring their story to the press, but the cowboys refuse, so she steals one of their horses and rides into the test site, intent on repeating their experience to get the attention of the press. She is arrested, which gets the attention of the press, and Robert is forced to let her, and Hank, go. She returns home to find Hank waiting for her, having quit that morning, and that Vince has been relieved of his duties. Hank tells her he found a new job in California, and the family happily moves. 

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Software designer Scott Warden is living with his family in early twenty-first century Thailand after his latest contract has ended. He and his friend Hitch Paley are among the first to find an enormous monolith which appears out of nowhere in the jungle. On closer examination, it is found to be a monument made of a mysterious, indestructible substance. It bears an inscription commemorating a military victory by someone named "Kuin", presumably an Asian warlord—twenty years in the future. Over the next twenty years, increasingly grand monuments to Kuin continue to appear—first in Asia, then in much of the rest of the world. Pro-Kuin and anti-Kuin political movements spring up, leading to the rise of economic problems, fatalistic cults, and open war. Scott has become entangled with his former teacher and mentor Sue Chopra, a scientist who has assembled a team of fellow researchers to investigate the chronoliths and learn to predict their appearances. With Sue's team, Scott witnesses a new chronolith that appears in Jerusalem. Kaitlin, his daughter, becomes caught up in the hysteria and joins a pro-Kuin youth cult; while trying to find her, Scott meets Ashlee, a single mother whose son Adam Mills joined the same cult. This leads to Scott and his companions being on hand to witness yet another chronolith appearance in Mexico. Sue Chopra comes to believe that Kuin has made the chronoliths in order to inspire fear and defeatism, making the future victories inevitable by gaining support ahead of time. In an effort to fight Kuin's growing influence, Scott, Sue Chopra, and her team plan to destroy the first chronolith predicted to appear in the United States. The chronolith self-destructs; apparently sabotaged by a maker who exceeded the limits of the technology. A militant faction, now led by Adam Mills, attacks their base of operations, takes Chopra hostage, and menaces Scott's family. Scott lives to see the collapse of the Kuinist movement and a scientific renaissance sparked by Chopra's chronolith research. 

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The story follows a young boy named Gon Freecss, who was told all his life that both his parents were dead. But when he learns from Kite, an apprentice of his father Ging Freecss, that he is still alive and has since become an accomplished Hunter, Gon leaves his home on to take the in order to become a Hunter like him. During the exam, Gon meets and soon befriends three of the other applicants: Kurapika, the last remaining member of the Kurta clan who wishes to become a Hunter in order to avenge his clan and recover their scarlet- glowing eyes that were plucked from their corpses by a band of thieves known as the Phantom Troupe; Leorio, a prospective physician who, in order to pay for medical school, desires the financial benefits that Hunters receive; and Killua Zoldyck, another twelve-year-old boy who has left his former life as a member of the world's most notorious assassin family. Among many other examinees, Gon continuously encounters Hisoka, a mysterious and deadly transmuter who takes an interest in him. After passing by many trials together, Gon and his friends end up passing the exam except for Killua, who fails after killing another applicant due to being controlled by his brother, Illumi, and runs away to his family's estate in shame. After Gon and the others convince Killua to rejoin their side, Leorio and Kurapika depart temporarily for their own personal reasons, while Gon and Killua set for the , a skyscraper where thousands of martial artists compete daily in fighting tournaments, seeking to improve themselves and gain monetary rewards. There they meet a kung fu master named Wing who trains them in utilizing Nen, a Qi- life like energy used by its practicers to manifest parapsychological abilities, and is also considered to be the final requirement to pass the Hunter Exam. Sometime later, Gon and his friends reunite again in where they have a clash with the Phantom Troupe. During the occasion, two from the band of thieves are killed by Kurapika and he is forced to give up the chance of hunting down the rest in order to rescue Gon and Killua, who were captured by them, but not without succeeding in sealing the powers of their leader Chrollo Lucilfer. A few days later, Gon and Killua achieve their objective and begin playing Greed Island, an extremely rare and expensive video game with Nen-like properties following some clues about Ging's whereabouts. While exploring the game, it is revealed that its scenario is actually set somewhere in the real world, created with Nen by none other than Ging himself. Outclassed by the difficulty of the challenges in the game at first, they are soon joined and trained by Biscuit Krueger, an experienced teacher of Nen and kung fu master. With the help of Biscuit, Gon and Killua train their Nen and learn to shape their abilities to their traits. During their stay on Greed Island, Killua takes a short break to apply for the Hunter Examination again, this time passes with success. The trio then complete the game together against all odds and Gon obtains the right to choose the artifacts from the game necessary to reunite with his father. However, Gon decides to have Killua accompany him to meet his father using the artifacts, but they send them to meet Kite instead. The duo then decide to help with Kite's research, and upon discovering a giant insect limb the group discovers that it came from a man-sized Chimera Ant queen, an insect that devours other creatures and then gives birth to progeny that inherit the characteristics of the different species it has eaten. The queen washes up onto an island nation called the Neo-Green Life (N.G.L.) Autonomous Region, where she quickly develops a taste for humans and builds a colony powerful enough to overcome the population, especially after her offspring learn the power of Nen after consuming some Hunters. Upon facing the Royal Guard of the Chimera Ants, Kite sacrifices himself to allow Gon and Killua to flee and alert the Hunter Association. After weeks of preparation, the Association sends a team of some of their most powerful Hunters, including Netero, the president of the Association himself to defeat the Ants and their king Meruem, whose subjects secretly overthrew the government of the nearby as part of their plan of subduing all of mankind. Despite losing to Meruem in combat, Netero ends up killing him with a bomb implanted in his body that poisons him to death soon after. In the occasion, Gon has a showdown with Neferpitou, the Ant who killed Kite and despite having exacted his revenge is hospitalized and in critical condition. After the Chimera Ant incident is resolved, the Hunter Association's top echelons the Zodiacs, from which Ging is a member, begin the process of choosing Netero's replacement as Chairman, while Killua returns home to ask for his younger sister Alluka to save Gon's life. However, his family is unwilling to risk losing Alluka or having her dangerous powers used against them, but after evading his older brother Illumi's attempts to intercept him, Killua manages to bring Alluka to Gon's side and have him fully recovered, before sealing her powers completely to ensure that she can have a normal life. Killua then parts ways with Gon, as he wants to travel the world with Alluka who had never seen the outside world before, while Gon himself finally meets his father and learns the true nature of his quest. Some time later, Netero's son Beyond assembles an expedition to the . The forbidden, vast area outside of the known world that is sponsored by the Kingdom of Kakin. Fearing that the expedition may bring disaster to the world, just like it occurred in previous attempts, the world's five greatest powers accept that Kakin join their ranks in exchange for full authority over its findings. To accompany Beyond and prevent him from doing something unexpected, the Zodiacs decide to watch over him and invite Kurapika and Leorio to join them. While replacing Ging and the former Vice-Chairman Pariston, who assembled their own Dark Continent exploration teams by Beyond's request. Meanwhile, Hisoka and Chrollo had their fight in Heaven's Tower. Chrollo designed a sophisticated strategy and applied a combination of stolen skills that overwhelmed and killed Hisoka. Still, before dying, Hisoka used his Nen on his heart to wake his heart after death, and the tactic worked because Nen becomes stronger after death. After waking up, Hisoka humiliated Machi and killed both Kortopi and Shalnark, vowing to hunt the Phantom Troupe and kill it leg for leg before killing Chrollo. Aboard Kakin's expedition's ship, the fourteen princes of Kakin take part in a battle to the death called Succession War to decide the next king. In an attempt to recruit Kurapika to the Zodiacs, Mizaistom Nana tells him that the 4th prince of Kakin has an extensive collection of eyes from the Kurta Clan. Upon learning that, Kurapika immediately joins the Zodiacs as Pariston's substitute and infiltrates the royalty's security force along Pro Hunters he hired from the Hunter Association, most notable Izunavi, Basho, Melody, Biscuit, and Hanzo. Kurapika was hired to be the 14th prince's bodyguard and placed his fellow Pro Hunters strategically as bodyguards to other princes. Members of the Phantom Troupe (now includes Illumi) also infiltrate the ship targeting the treasures stored in the ship and revenge on Hisoka, who they suspect has boarded the ship too. As the Succession War starts, Kurapika learns that the elder princes are in an advantageous position, as they have been already preparing for the war for a long time. To revert the situation and create a stalemate position where he could help himself and the younger princes to survive, Kurapika warns every prince and bodyguard about Nen and starts teaching Nen to the royalty's security members who were not aware of Nen. Mizaistom and Botobai are investigating homicides inside the ship. They take notice of the consequences of the princes' struggles, and their ties to the mafia, in the lower parts of the ship and start to take measures to avoid chaos and genocide inside the ship. The Phantom Troupe also takes notice of the existence of Kakin princes' ties to the mafia. While hunting Hisoka, Phinks, Feitan, and Nobunaga start to get close to the mafia faction tied to the 4th prince of Kakin, right at the moment when a mafia war on the lower levels starts. 

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The TARDIS materialises in the village of Lannet in Lancashire. An annoyed Doctor, who has apparently been transported here against his will, is locked out of the TARDIS and forced to examine his surroundings. After determining he is in England in 2003, he is surprised to discover the village is silent and the inhabitants all living in fear except for a barmaid named Alison Cheney. After the patrons and bar owner refuse to tell the Doctor what's going on, he leaves the bar and stumbles upon a lava statue and a homeless woman who is frightened. As the woman is beginning to fill in the Doctor on what's been happening, a tremor strikes the area and the woman is killed by a mysterious force. Back at the TARDIS, the ground opens up and the Doctor's police box is swallowed up into the lava below. Angered at the homeless woman's death, the Doctor tracks down Alison and her boyfriend Joe at their home and breaks in demanding that someone tell him what has been going on. Alison tells the Doctor that three weeks ago, strange noises began coming from underground. She has seen mysterious aliens around town watching her. The townspeople have convinced themselves that they need to stay indoors and make as little noise as possible. The Doctor begins making noise to attract the aliens, who burst up through the floor in a pool of lava. Immune to their shrieking cries, he deflects their noises back at them causing them to explode. The Doctor, Alison, and Joe flee next door where the Doctor explains that the aliens have bodies that can remake themselves. He improvises a large explosion which he believes will disable them and buy time. The explosion destroys the two alien worms and causes the noises from the ground to stop. The Doctor contacts UNIT and explains that he is not interested in getting involved in this problem. He gives them all the information he has on the aliens and tells them that once he retrieves his TARDIS he is leaving. The aliens have begun nesting below ground at a site rich with a special volcanic rock the Doctor believes they have adapted themselves to use. He maps out the area and leads a UNIT team down into some caves to find his TARDIS. After a tense exchange with the UNIT commander, the worm creatures attack and the Doctor separates himself from the group and hitches a ride in a giant underground worm to the main lair of the aliens. There he meets Prime, commander of the Shalka. Prime declares humans inferior and subject to their domination. The Doctor attempts to act inept to extract information from Prime, who sees through the act and calls him out on it. Prime reveals that the Shalka are 2000 strong and will be invading the surface soon. The Doctor attempts another bluff, declaring himself a non-human and therefore uninterested in what happens to the humans. Prime orders Alison executed in hot lava, which forces the Doctor to make a deal to spare her life. He allows the Shalka into the TARDIS and de-activates the Master, who turns out to be an android programmed by the Doctor. The Shalka tell the Doctor his technology is inferior and they do not need him. He is cast into a black hole they have created inside Earth that they are using as a gateway to bring in more troops and also to dispose of people they do not need. As he is plummeting into the black hole the Doctor realizes his phone is still connected to the TARDIS and uses it to summon the TARDIS. He finds the Master re-activated and forcefully expels the Shalka from the TARDIS into the black hole. For an unknown reason, the Shalka release Alison back to the surface. As UNIT evacuates the town, a soldier tells the Doctor he has captured one of the Shalka on the surface. The Shalka was accidentally exposed to raw oxygen when a cylinder near it exploded. The raw oxygen caused it to pass out. The Doctor also discovers that Alison is alive, and that none of the survivors from the town have made it to their new destinations. The Doctor attempts to interrogate the Shalka but it recovers and attacks the soldier. The Doctor uses more oxygen to subdue it until he can determine what's going on. He also discovers that the survivors all have sore throats. The survivors and Alison all march against their will to a warehouse in another town. The Doctor arrives in his TARDIS with UNIT men inside and they storm the area. The Doctor removes a living Shalka from Alison's forehead but the effort causes him to pass out. When he recovers they find that all around the world people are mobilizing against their will to strategic points on Earth. The Doctor realizes that the reason everyone has a sore throat is that they all have been emitting subsonic screams when under Shalka control. The Shalka are using the screams to alter the atmosphere of the Earth. As the slaves begin emitting their screams and the ozone layer of the Earth is being stripped away the Doctor takes Alison and the Master back to the Shalka underground lair. When asked if the Master is coming with them, the Doctor tells Alison that the Master cannot leave the TARDIS. The Doctor and Alison confront Prime, who tells them that the Shalka inhabit 80% of the worlds in the universe, living underground off of volcanic energy. When a species is on the edge of ecological destruction, the Shalka come in and finish destroying the planet. The rest of the universe assumes that the species that died off did the damage to themselves, and the Shalka live underground in the remains of that world. The Doctor swallows the small piece of Shalka he removed from Alison's forehead. He bonds with it, reprogramming it to do what he wants. He uses its knowledge to plug himself into their sonic network and understand the shrieks. He engages Prime in a "sonic duel", which he purposely throws to get Prime to move him toward the black hole controls. He activates the black hole, sucking in Prime and sending her to her death. Alison stops the black hole and the Doctor coughs up the piece of Shalka. He puts it back in Alison's head, where she fights off the remaining Shalka and shuts down the screams. The Doctor unplugs her a few moments before she can reprogram the scream to heal the atmosphere. He tells her that she cannot be allowed that much power. On board the TARDIS, the Master reveals that it has been a long time since the Doctor had a living companion. His last companion was killed in the events that also led to the Master choosing to have his consciousness placed in the android and to the Doctor's exile. Without being specific, the Master tells her that they are being controlled by an unknown force and the Doctor wants Alison to stay as his companion but he won't ask her to. After they land, Joe arrives and Alison tells him she is leaving with the Doctor because she is bored and wants to see the universe. Joe reluctantly accepts her decision and a kiss before the Master begins the TARDIS dematerialising cycle and they board the craft. 

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Following his divorce, doctor and medical-school lecturer Robert Laing moves into his new apartment on the 25th floor of a recently completed high-rise building on the outskirts of London. This tower block provides its affluent tenants all the conveniences and commodities that modern life has to offer: a supermarket, bank, restaurant, hair salon, swimming pools, a gymnasium, its own school, and high- speed lifts. Its cutting-edge amenities allow the occupants to gradually become uninterested in the outside world, providing them with accommodations and a secure environment. Laing meets fellow tenants Charlotte Melville, a secretary who lives one floor above him, and Richard Wilder, a documentary film-maker who lives with his family on the building's lower floors. Life in the high-rise begins to degenerate quickly, as minor power failures and petty grievances among neighbours and between rival floors escalate into an orgy of violence. Skirmishes become frequent throughout the building as whole floors of tenants try to claim lifts and hold them for their own. Groups gather to defend their rights to the swimming pools, and party-goers attack "enemy floors" to raid and vandalise them. The lower, middle, and upper floors of the building gradually stratify into distinct groups. It does not take long for the occupants to ignore social restraints, abandoning life outside the building and devoting their time to the escalation of violence inside; people quit their jobs, and families stay indoors permanently, losing all sense of time. As the amenities of the high-rise break down and bodies begin to pile up, no one considers leaving or alerting the authorities, instead exploring the newly-found urges and desires engendered by the building's disintegration. As Laing navigates the new environment, Wilder sets out to reach floor 40 — the top of the building — and finally confront the building's architect, Anthony Royal. 

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Episodes of ChuckleVision were usually independent, with the basic plot for each involving the brothers undertaking a job, task or adventure. They were often employed by a character known as "No Slacking", who, despite appearing as a different character in every episode, was always known by this name because of his catchphrase ("And remember, No Slacking!"). The character was always inconvenienced by Paul and Barry and was played by the brothers' real-life elder sibling, Jimmy Patton. Jimmy was part of a comedy act with his brother Brian, who also appeared in various episodes, mostly playing a villain with the catchphrase "Getoutofit!". A large amount of the comedy is slapstick. The duo also carried out work for "Dan the Van", who was never seen on screen, apart from a single episode where the Chuckle Brothers take it upon themselves to make sure he arrives to a special meeting. Dan's face cannot be seen as he is completely covered in bandages and is wearing dark glasses. Relatives of Dan the Van are sometimes seen or referred to, such as his grandmother, Lettuce the Van. In the first two series (1987–1989), each episode focused on a certain topic, in the style of Blue Peter. These episodes had rarely been available since their original transmission, until the series was released onto DVD in Autumn 2011. The first series featured a segment called "Armchair Theatre" where Billy Butler would tell a story to the viewers. The first series also featured magician Simon Lovell performing a trick. The brothers' main mode of transport was "The Chuckmobile", a quadracycle with a red-and-white striped roof. Barry was usually the driver, whilst Paul put his feet up on the front bar. Paul only pedalled the bike very occasionally throughout the entire series. The registration plate of the bike is CHUCKLE 1. In 2018, 'The Chuckmobile' was bought by entertainments company InTo Entertain, who now hire out the bike for events such as weddings, festivals and quirky occasions with the brand name 'Chuckle Your Vision'. An exception to the usual format of stand-alone episodes came with Series 14, broadcast in 2002. The series employed a continuous storyline throughout each episode, involving the brothers' hunt for a missing ruby. They continued a similar trend in the next two series, with two 3-part stories in Series 15, entitled "The Purple Pimple" and "Magnetic Distraction". A two part story called "Incredible Shrinking Barry" appears in Series 16. From Series 17, this trend was not repeated. 

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Densuke has just enrolled at the exclusive Zashono Academy. He's very eager to participate in extracurricular activities, but never expected to join the mysterious Eiken Club. Strangely enough, every other member is a busty co-ed, and many of the club's activities involve bikinis. But Densuke isn't interested in anyone except for the shy and beautiful Chiharu Shinonome. 

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Under a Killing Moon takes place in post-World War III San Francisco in December 2042. After the devastating events of the nuclear war, many major cities have been rebuilt (as is the case with New San Francisco), though certain areas still remain as they were before the war (as in Old San Francisco). The war also left another mark on the world: the formation of two classes of citizens. Specifically, some people have developed a natural resistance against radioactivity, and thus are normal or "Norms"—everybody else are Mutants in some form. Tensions between the two groups have risen dramatically and Norms and Mutants usually do not get along. The Mutants are usually forced to live in the run-down areas of cities such as Old San Francisco. Tex Murphy lives on Chandler Avenue in Old San Francisco. All his friends are Mutants, though he is a Norm. In Under a Killing Moon, Tex Murphy, a private investigator, has hit rock bottom. Recently divorced from his wife Sylvia, out of work, low on cash, and living in a run-down part of Old San Francisco, Tex realizes that he has to get his act together. Tex sets out to hunt for work. He finds it quickly once he discovers that the pawnshop across the street from his apartment has been burglarized. Tex quickly solves the case, and feels his luck has begun to change. Then a mysterious woman calling herself Countess Renier, having heard good things about Tex, hires him to find her missing statuette. Everything seems great at first and the Countess is promising to pay Tex more money than he has seen in his life. However, everything quickly goes downhill when Tex finds out about a doomsday plot by a deadly cult calling themselves the Brotherhood of Purity. 

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In the early 1980s, teenagers Martin Asher and Matt Soulsby meet on a bus to Mont-Laurier, Quebec. The bus breaks down, and the two acquire a car, which soon blows a tire. As Matt changes the tire, Martin comments that they are about the same height, and kicks him into the path of an oncoming truck, killing Matt and the driver. Taking Matt's guitar and clothes, Martin continues on foot, singing in a voice similar to Matt's. Twenty years later, FBI profiler Illeana Scott is summoned by Inspector Leclair to help Montreal authorities in apprehending a serial killer who assumes his victims’ identities, enabling him to travel undetected across North America. Illeana interviews art dealer James Costa, an eyewitness to the killer’s most recent murder. James makes a drawing of the killer and the authorities track down the suspect's apartment, finding a decaying corpse chained in the ceiling. Martin's mother Rebecca claims to have seen her son – believed dead in Matt’s place years earlier – alive on a ferry to Quebec City, leading to the body buried as Martin being exhumed for forensic examination, and he becomes the primary suspect. At Rebecca's home, Illeana questions her about her son, learning that Martin was an unwanted child who became unstable after the death of his favored twin brother. Illeana discovers a hidden passageway behind a cabinet leading to Martin’s secret room, where she is attacked by a hidden assailant, who escapes before she can identify him. Illeana deduces that Asher targets his victims to live as someone different than himself, and that his latest target is James after his apartment is ransacked. James is used in a sting operation to lure Asher, but the trap fails. During a show at his gallery, James is attacked by an assailant, presumed to be Asher, whom Illeana tries to apprehend but loses in the crowd. The police prepare to move James out of town, but he is confronted by the assailant, who attacks him and kills his police escort before driving away with James at gunpoint. Illeana gives chase, and causes the car to crash and explode just as James manages to escape. James visits Illeana’s hotel room where, having grown close over the course of the investigation, they make passionate love surrounded by gruesome crime scene photos. Illeana awakens to find herself covered in James’ blood, but he has merely popped the stitches he received after the car chase. As James’ stitches are repaired in the hospital, Illeana is called to the morgue, where Rebecca is unable to identify the charred body of the assailant, and Illeana realizes that Asher must still be alive. Before Illeana can reach her, Rebecca enters the elevator and is confronted by James, revealing himself as the real Martin Asher. He kills his mother, and Illeana is shocked to see him covered in blood before the elevator doors close again, and he escapes the hospital. The police determine that the assailant killed in the car chase was Christopher Hart, a drug addict and art thief to whom Asher owed money. In the struggle in his apartment, Asher killed Hart and staged being taken hostage. Pursued by the police, Asher escapes by train and selects his next victim, taunting Illeana by phone before disappearing. Admitting to having consensual sex with Asher, Illeana is fired from the FBI. Seven months later, Illeana is living alone in a desolate farmhouse in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, apparently heavily pregnant with Asher's twins. She is confronted by Asher, who declares that they can start over and live together as a family, but Illeana refuses. Enraged, Asher beats her and prepares to choke her into unconsciousness, seizing a pair of scissors from her when she defends herself and stabbing her in the belly. Illeana stabs Asher in the heart with the same scissors and removes her prosthetic pregnant belly, explaining that the past months were a carefully planned trap. Asher dies, and Illeana informs Leclair the ordeal is over. 

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Newspapers detail the 1949 murder of Margaret Strauss, who was stabbed during a robbery; her anklet is missing. Her husband, composer Roman Strauss, is found guilty of the crime and condemned to death. Before his execution, Roman is visited by reporter Gray Baker. Asked if he killed Margaret, Roman appears to whisper something in Gray's ear. Baker does not disclose Roman's answer. Forty years later, private detective Mike Church investigates the identity of a woman who has appeared at the orphanage where he grew up. She has amnesia, cannot speak and has nightmares. Mike takes her in and asks his friend, Pete Dugan, to publish her picture and his contact information. Antiques dealer and hypnotist Franklyn Madson approaches Mike, suggesting that hypnosis may help her recover her memory. When the session is unsuccessful, Madson suggests that they experiment with past life regression. Mike is skeptical, but the woman details Margaret and Roman's lives in third person, from courtship to their wedding. When the session ends, she can speak but still has amnesia. Madson shows them Life magazine articles covering the murder. Mike and the woman bear a striking resemblance to Roman and Margaret. Mike visits disgraced psychiatrist Cozy Carlisle, who insists that they continue to see Madson; delving into the problems between Margaret and Roman may resolve her amnesia. Mike nicknames the woman "Grace", and falls in love with her. Doug appears and claims that Grace is his fiancée Katherine, but Mike discovers he is lying and chases him away. Hypnotized, Grace remembers that Roman suffers from writer's block and is broke. He believes that Margaret is flirting with Baker, whom she met on their wedding day. Margaret cannot convince Roman that she is faithful and catches Frankie, the son of their housekeeper Inga, looking through her jewelry box. She asks Roman to dismiss them but Roman refuses, saying that they saved his life in Nazi Germany. Grace sees Mike standing over Margaret with scissors, and is convinced he intends to kill her. Mike insists that he would never hurt her, but when he accidentally calls her "Margaret", he agrees to let Madson regress him. During his regression, he realizes he was Margaret and that Grace was actually Roman, but is unable to tell Madson or Grace this revelation. Dugan tells Mike that he has identified Grace as artist Amanda Sharp. Amanda, still afraid of Mike, accompanies Pete and Madson to her apartment; her artwork focuses on scissors. Madson gives her a gun to protect herself from Mike. Mike visits Baker in a nursing home and asks him about Roman's secret, but Baker insists that Roman said nothing to him. Baker is convinced that Roman did not kill his wife and urges Mike to find Inga, who would know what happened. Mike realizes that Madson is Frankie. He questions Inga, who explains that she declared her love for Roman but he rebuffed her advances. Frankie blamed Margaret for his mother's unhappiness and killed her with scissors, then stole her anklet. Roman later was found covered in his wife's blood and holding the murder weapon. After Roman's execution, Inga took Frankie to London where he learned about hypnotherapy and past-life regression. After returning to Los Angeles, Frankie was convinced that Margaret's spirit would seek revenge. When he saw Amanda's picture in the paper, he knew she had returned. He hired Doug, an actor, to separate Mike and Amanda and distract Amanda while he waited to kill her. Inga apologizes for her role in Margaret's death, and gives Mike the anklet. After Mike leaves to find Amanda, Madson smothers Inga with a pillow. Mike tries to tell Amanda the truth. Terrified, she shoots him. Madson arrives and reveals his true identity. Amanda tries to shoot him as well, but the gun jams and he knocks her out. He puts the scissors he used to kill Margaret in Mike's hand and tries to make it look like Amanda killed him and committed suicide. Mike revives and stabs Madson in the leg with the scissors. In the ensuing struggle, Mike grabs the gun from Madson. Pete arrives, misconstrues the scene and tackles Mike. As Madson reaches for the dropped pistol, Amanda stabs him in the back with the scissors. In a berserk rage, Madson pulls the scissors out and charges at Mike, but Mike quickly positions Amanda's scissors sculptures so that Madson impales himself. A closing montage shows Mike and Amanda embracing, superimposed over Margaret and Roman in happier times. 

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George Banks is the owner of a successful athletic shoe company called Side Kicks in San Marino, California. George narrates what he had to go through with his daughter's wedding. His 22-year-old daughter Annie, freshly graduated from college, returns home from Europe and announces that she is engaged to Bryan MacKenzie, despite their only having known each other for three months. The sudden shock turns the warm reunion into a heated argument between George and Annie, but they quickly reconcile in time for Bryan to arrive and meet them. Despite Bryan's good financial status and likeable demeanor, George takes an immediate dislike to him while his wife, Nina, accepts him as a potential son- in-law. George does not want to let go of his daughter. George and Nina meet Bryan's parents, John and Joanna MacKenzie who are wealthy and live in a mansion in Bel-Air. John reassures George by also expressing how shocked he had initially been at Bryan's engagement, but George quickly gets into trouble when he begins nosing around the MacKenzies' financial records. He eventually ends up falling into the pool when cornered by the MacKenzies' vicious pet Dobermans. All is forgiven, however, and the Banks family meets with an eccentric European wedding coordinator, Franck Eggelhoffer. He sneers dismissively at George's complaints about the price of the extravagant wedding items, including a flock of swans. The high price, and the seemingly excessive number of wedding invitations and cost of each dinner, begin to take their toll on George and he becomes slightly insane. The last straw occurs when he retrieves his old tux from the attic - with the expectation that at least IT will still fit - and as he struggles to put it on - it promptly rips when he bends over. He leaves the house to cool off, but ends up causing a disturbance at the supermarket. Fed up with paying for things he doesn't want, he starts removing hot dog buns from the store's 12-bun packets so as to match the 8-dog packets of hot dogs. He ends up getting arrested, but Nina arrives to bail him out of jail on the condition that he stop ruining the wedding. With help from Nina and Franck, George becomes more relaxed and accepting of the wedding, particularly when Annie and Bryan receive rather expensive gifts from extended family members. The wedding plans are put on hold when they have a fight over a blender Bryan gave her as a gift, which only gets worse when she refuses to believe his story about George's earlier antics. George takes Bryan out for a drink, initially intending to get rid of him for good, but seeing his heartbroken face and genuine claim that he loves Annie, George has a change of heart and finally accepts him. He confesses to Annie that what happened at the MacKenzies' house was true, and she and Bryan reconcile. Despite some last minute problems with the weather, the wedding is finally prepared, almost one year after Bryan and Annie's first meeting. They marry and the reception is held at the house, despite a nosy police officer objecting to the number of parked cars in the street. Unfortunately, George misses Annie throwing her bouquet and is unable to see her before she and Bryan leave for their honeymoon in Hawaii. The film picks up George's narration from the beginning as the wedding reception ends. Annie calls him from the airport to thank and tell him that she loves him one last time before they board the plane. With the house now empty and the wedding finished, George finds solace with Nina and dances with her. 

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Dragon Warriors plot is a twist on saving a princess from a dragon, in that the player doesn't even have to meet with or speak with her to complete the game. 

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The Black Rebels Motorcycle Club (BRMC), a gang led by Johnny Strabler, rides into Carbonville, California, during a motorcycle race and cause trouble. A member of the gang, Pidgeon, steals the second-place trophy (the first place one being too large to hide) and presents it to Johnny. Stewards and policemen order them to leave. The bikers head to Wrightsville, which only has one elderly, conciliatory lawman, Chief Harry Bleeker, to maintain order. The residents are uneasy, but mostly willing to put up with their visitors. When their antics cause Art Kleiner to swerve and crash his car, he demands that something be done, but Harry is reluctant to act, a weakness that is not lost on the interlopers. This accident results in the gang having to stay longer in town, as one member injured himself falling off his motorcycle. Although the young men become more and more boisterous, their custom is enthusiastically welcomed by Harry's brother Frank who runs the local cafe-bar, employing Harry's daughter, Kathie, and the elderly Jimmy. At Frank's cafe, Johnny meets Kathie and asks her out to a dance being held that night. Kathie politely turns him down, but Johnny's dark, brooding personality visibly intrigues her. When Mildred, another local girl, asks him, "What are you rebelling against, Johnny?", he answers "Whaddaya got?" Johnny is attracted to Kathie and decides to stay awhile. However, when he learns that she is the policeman's daughter, he changes his mind. A rival biker gang arrives and their leader, Chino, bears a grudge against Johnny. Chino reveals the two groups used to be one large gang before Johnny split it up. When Chino takes Johnny's trophy, the two start fighting and Johnny wins. Meanwhile, local Charlie Thomas stubbornly tries to drive through, he hits a parked motorcycle and injures Meatball, one of Chino's bikers. Chino pulls Charlie out and leads both gangs to overturn his car. Harry intervenes and starts arresting Chino and Charlie, but when other townspeople remind Harry that Charlie would cause problems for him in the future, he only takes Chino to the station. Later that night some members of the rival biker gang harass Dorothy, the telephone switchboard operator into leaving, thereby disrupting the townspeople's communication, while the BRMC abducts Charlie and puts him in the same jail cell as Chino, who is too drunk to leave with the gang. Later, as both gangs wreck the town and intimidate the inhabitants, some bikers led by Gringo chase and surround Kathie, but Johnny rescues her and takes her on a long ride in the countryside. Frightened at first, Kathie comes to see that Johnny is genuinely attracted to her and means her no harm. When she opens up to him and asks to go with him, he rejects her. Crying, she runs away. Johnny drives off to search for her. Art sees and misinterprets this as an attack. The townspeople have had enough. Johnny's supposed assault on Kathie is the last straw. Vigilantes led by Charlie chase and catch Johnny and beat him mercilessly, but he escapes on his motorcycle when Harry confronts the mob. The mob give chase, but Johnny is hit by a thrown tire iron and falls. His riderless motorcycle strikes and kills Jimmy. Sheriff Stew Singer arrives with his deputies and restores order. Johnny is initially arrested for Jimmy's death, with Kathie pleading on his behalf. Seeing this, Art and Frank step forward and testify that Johnny was not responsible for the tragedy, with Johnny being unable to thank them. The motorcyclists are ordered to leave the county, albeit paying for all damage. However, Johnny returns alone to Wrightsville, and re-visits the cafe to say goodbye to Kathie one final time. He first tries to hide his humiliation and acts as though he's leaving after getting a cup of coffee, but then he returns, genuinely smiles, and gives her the stolen trophy as a gift. 

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Maria Andreyevna Ostrakova, a Soviet émigrée in Paris, is told by a Soviet agent calling himself "Kursky" that her daughter Alexandra, whom she was forced to leave behind, may be permitted to join her for "humanitarian reasons". Maria applies for French citizenship for her daughter, but time passes with no sign of Alexandra and no further contact with "Kursky". Realising she has been duped, Maria writes to General Vladimir, a former Soviet general and British agent, for help. Vladimir realises that Maria was used to provide a "legend", or false identity, for an unknown young woman, a ploy which KGB spymaster Karla has tried before. Vladimir also recognises that the operation is unofficial, because Karla used a blundering amateur agent instead of trained intelligence officers. Vladimir contacts Toby Esterhase, his old handler and "postman" in the Circus, but Esterhase has left the service and refuses to be involved in Vladimir's plans. Nevertheless, Vladimir sends a confidant, Otto Leipzig, to interview Maria in Paris. From a photograph, Maria immediately identifies "Kursky". Vladimir then sends the son of an old friend to Hamburg to collect vital proof from Leipzig. He contacts the Circus again, invoking Moscow Rules and insisting on speaking to his former "vicar" or senior case officer, George Smiley, not realising that Smiley is also retired. The Circus personnel, unfamiliar with Vladimir, are skeptical and uncooperative. Meanwhile, Vladimir's activities are betrayed to Karla, probably by jealous members of Vladimir's émigré organisation. Vladimir is assassinated on Hampstead Heath, evidently by Moscow Centre agents, while on his way to meet an inexperienced handler from the Circus. Circus head Saul Enderby and Civil Service undersecretary Oliver Lacon believe that Vladimir was merely an ex- agent seeking attention, and want to bury the matter quickly to protect the Circus from any scandal. They recall Smiley from his retirement in the hope that he will erase any links to the Circus. Unlike Enderby and Lacon, Smiley takes Vladimir's claims seriously and begins to investigate. He recovers a second letter sent to Vladimir by Maria, who is now being shadowed and fears for her life. Near the site where Vladimir was killed, he discovers Vladimir's half-empty packet of Gauloises cigarettes, containing the negative of a compromising photograph of Leipzig and another man with prostitutes. Smiley recalls that Leipzig had blackmailed a Soviet agent named Oleg Kirov to obtain information, and surmises that Kirov is probably the other man in the photograph. Meanwhile, Soviet agents bungle an attempt to kill Maria. Smiley consults dying former Circus researcher Connie Sachs, who remembers some background information on Kirov, also known by the cover name "Kursky". Following Vladimir's logic that Karla was acting outside the system he himself devised, Connie also recounts rumours that Karla had a daughter by a mistress whom he had later sent to the Gulag when she turned against him. The daughter, Tatiana was mentally unstable and was confined to a mental institution. Smiley flies to Hamburg and tracks down Claus Kretzschmar, an old associate of Leipzig and owner of the seedy night club where the photograph was taken. Kretzschmar gives him directions to Leipzig's houseboat in a gypsy encampment on the Baltic Sea near Lübeck, but Karla's agents have already tortured and killed Leipzig. Smiley's search of Leipzig's boat uncovers the torn half of a postcard hidden underwater in an old gym-shoe on a fishing-line, witnessed by several people. Smiley rushes to finish his work in Lübeck before East German police and Soviet agents close in on him. He takes the postcard to Kretzschmar, who matches it to the other half and in exchange gives Smiley tape recordings made at the time the photograph of Leipzig and Kirov, and a photocopy of Maria's first letter to Vladimir. Smiley hastens to Paris, fearing for Maria's life. With help from his old colleague Peter Guillam, who is serving out his days in the British Embassy in Paris, Smiley gets Maria to safety. He also learns that Kirov has been summoned back to Moscow, and has probably been killed for his indiscretions. Smiley returns to London and meets with Enderby. The transcribed tape of Kirov's confession to Leipzig shows that Karla is secretly diverting funds to a Swiss bank account and misappropriating other resources using a commercial attaché of the Soviet Embassy in Bern, named Grigoriev. The money is going to the care of Karla's daughter, who has been committed to an expensive Swiss psychiatric sanatorium under the faked citizenship papers of Maria's daughter. Smiley explains that if the Circus can obtain proof of this activity, they may have the information necessary to blackmail Karla and force him to either defect or be exposed. Enderby gives Smiley approval, as well as secret and deniable funding, to mount an operation to secure the evidence from Grigoriev and trap Karla. Esterhase sets up a covert team in Bern to keep Grigoriev under observation, while Smiley visits his estranged wife, Lady Ann Sercomb, and makes a point of cutting relations with her before travelling to Bern. Smiley learns that, like Kirov, Grigoriev is untrained in spycraft. Esterhase's team soon gains evidence of his unofficial handling of funds for Karla and his affair with one of his secretaries. Although Grigoriev is normally accompanied everywhere by his wife, when he makes an informal trip by himself, Esterhase and his helpers take the opportunity to bundle him into a car. Smiley presents him with the choice of cooperating or being thrown to the mercy of Swiss authorities and, later, Karla. Grigoriev quickly confesses all he knows of the arrangements regarding "Alexandra's" care and the details of the visits he makes to her. Smiley visits "Alexandra", who is being treated in an institution run by an order of nuns. Among her "symptoms" is her insistence that she is actually called Tatiana and is the daughter of a powerful man who can make people disappear but who does not actually exist. Smiley writes a letter to Karla, which Grigoriev passes on instead of his usual weekly report on "Alexandra"'s treatment. The letter details Karla's illegal activities and offers him defection to the West and protection for Tatiana, or to face destruction at the hands of his rivals in Moscow Centre. In a final scene, Karla, posing as a labourer, defects using the Glienicke Bridge connecting East and West Berlin. Before crossing over into the waiting arms of Western agents, Karla stops and lights a cigarette. As he passes near Smiley he drops a gold cigarette lighter, a gift to George from Ann, that he purloined from Smiley twenty years earlier in a Delhi prison. Smiley does not pick up the lighter. 

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Three wild, uninhibited go-go dancers — Billie, Rosie, and Varla — dance at a club before racing their sports cars across the California desert. They play a high-speed game of chicken on the salt flats and encounter a young couple, Tommy and Linda, out to run a time trial. After breaking Tommy's neck in a fight, Varla kidnaps and drugs Linda. In a small desert town, they stop at a gas station where they see a wheelchair-bound old man and his muscular, dim-witted son. The gas station attendant tells the women that the old man was crippled in a railway accident, “going nuts" as a result, and that he received a large settlement of money that is hidden somewhere around his decrepit house in the desert. Intrigued, Varla hatches a scheme to rob the old man, and the three women follow him back to the ranch, with their captive in tow. At the ranch they encounter the old man, his younger son (who they learn is called "The Vegetable" due to his feeblemindedness) and his elder son, Kirk. The group all have lunch together, and Billie taunts Rosie when Varla leaves with Kirk, hoping to seduce him into revealing the location of the money. Linda subsequently escapes the drunken Billie and runs away into the desert. The old man and the younger son pursue in their truck. The younger son catches Linda and seems about to assault her, but he collapses in tears as Varla and Kirk arrive. Kirk finally acknowledges his father's lecherous nature and the old man's hold over his younger brother, and he vows to have his younger brother institutionalized. He tries to take the hysterical Linda into town in the truck, but the old man says that he has thrown away the keys, and Kirk and Linda set out across the desert on foot. Varla drives back to the house and tells Billie and Rosie that they should kill the men and the girl to cover up Linda's kidnapping and the murder of her boyfriend. Billie refuses, but as she walks away, Varla throws a knife into her back just as the old man and his younger son arrive. Rosie and Varla hit the old man with their car, killing him and knocking over his wheelchair to reveal the money hidden inside. Rosie is stabbed and killed by the younger son while trying to retrieve the knife from Billie's body. Varla tries to ram him into a wall with her car, injuring him. She drives off in the truck and overtakes Kirk and Linda, chasing them into a gully. Varla and Kirk fight hand-to-hand. She gets the better of him until Linda hits her with the truck, and she dies. Kirk and Linda drive off together in the truck. 

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According to an old Nordic legend, a Berserker was a bloodthirsty warrior who ate human flesh, was forbidden a restful death and fated to be reincarnated in their blood kin. A summer camp accidentally stumbles across the Berserker legend when it arises in Rainbow Valley, an area settled by Norwegian immigrants. The camp is abuzz with rumours of a wild bear killing people in the area, including speculation about an old couple who get lost. But is it really a bear? 

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The film begins with a voice-over by "Barek" who refers to a pagan legend. According to the saga Odin was spurned by Brunhilda. The irate pagan god chained her to an altar in Asgard, surrounded by a ring of eternal fire. He decreed that only a pure- hearted man could overcome the supernatural flames and save the alluring valkyrie. Her saviour's fate should then be connected to hers forever. As Barek explains, he and his only brother learned about this as little boys and craved more and more to rescue the legendary beauty as they grew older. As it is later on successively revealed by flashbacks, Boar eventually could not resist anymore and entered the ring of fire. Hereby he suffered severe burns. Barek followed him into the fire and remained wondrously unharmed. He unchained the valkyrie and persuaded her to save Boar's life. Unfortunately her bite turned Boar into a cannibalistic Berserker. When their father, Viking leader Thorsson is in need of reinforcements because he is in war with the "Army of the Nord", he joins an alliance with the Berserkers who are now led by Boar. Following their combined campaign they fight each other. Thorsson uses fire against the otherwise immortal Berserker Boar. Barek cannot bear see his brother burning and calls Odin for help. Odin complies with Barek's request but from now the fates of Barek, Boar and Brunhilda are interlinked by a timeless curse. 

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In post-war America, a train carrying the president of the United States is scheduled to make a stop in the small town of Suddenly, California. Claiming to be FBI agents checking up on security before the president’s arrival, three men arrive at the home of the Bensons: Ellen, a widow, her young son “Pidge,” and her father-in-law, “Pop” Benson. The house is on top of a hill that looks down on the station where the presidential train is scheduled to stop, making it a perfect perch from which to shoot the president when his train stops. However, it soon becomes clear that the men are not Government agents but assassins, led by the ruthless John Baron (Frank Sinatra), who take over the house and hold the family hostage, planning to shoot the president from a large window in the home. Sheriff Tod Shaw (Sterling Hayden) arrives with Dan Carney (Willis Bouchey), the Secret Service agent in charge of the president's security detail. When he does, Baron and his gangsters shoot Carney dead and a bullet fractures Shaw's arm. Baron sends Benny, one of his two henchmen, to double-check on the president's schedule, but shortly after confirming to Baron that the train is scheduled to stop in Suddenly at 5 p.m., Benny is killed in a shootout with the police. Meanwhile, Jud (James O'Hara), a television repairman, has shown up at the house and also becomes a hostage. Pidge (Kim Charney) goes to his grandfather's dresser to get some medication and notices a fully loaded revolver which he replaces with his toy cap gun. When the hostages try to appeal to Baron’s patriotism, it becomes clear that he has none: he has been hired to kill the president for money. But when Baron is confronted by the sheriff on the risks of killing the president, including whether he will ever see (let alone live to enjoy) his money, Baron's remaining henchman begins to show some reluctance to go through with the assassination. For Baron, however, these are the very least of his concerns, and it soon becomes clear that he is a psychopath whose pleasure comes from killingwho he kills and for what reason being of little importance to him. In the meantime, the assassins have mounted a WWII-vintage German sniper's rifle onto a metal table by the window overlooking the train station. Jud, under the guise of fixing the TV, discreetly hooks the table up to the 5000-volt plate output of the family television. Pop Benson (James Gleason) then intentionally spills a cup of water on the floor beneath the table. Although the hope is that Baron will be shocked and killed in this way, it is his remaining henchman who touches the table first and is electrocuted, reflexively firing the rifle repeatedly and attracting the attention of police at the train station. Baron shoots and mortally wounds Jud, disconnects the electrical hook-up and aims the rifle as the president's train arrives at the station, only to see the train pass straight through. As an utterly surprised Baron says “[i]t didn’t stop,” Ellen Benson (Nancy Gates) shoots Baron in the abdomen, and Shaw picks up a gun and shoots him a second time. Baron, having dropped to the floor, begs for mercy —— "No, don't...no, please...no, no, no" —— and dies. In the aftermath of the harrowing incident, outside the local hospital Shaw confirms to Ellen that Jud “didn’t make it.” Telling Ellen that he needs to go back to his office, Shaw then makes plans to meet Ellen after church the next day, and they kiss. After she leaves, a driver stops to ask for directions and then asks for the name of the town. When Shaw says it is “Suddenly,” the driver notes that “that’s a funny name for a town.” 

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A manga panel showing a Parasite getting ready to attack a human being. Parasyte centers on a male 17-year-old high school student named Shinichi Izumi, who lives with his mother and father in a quiet neighborhood in Tokyo, Japan. One night, tiny worm-like aliens with drill-like heads called Parasites arrive on Earth, taking over the brains of their hosts by entering through their ears or noses. One Parasite attempts to crawl into Shinichi's nose while he sleeps, but fails as Shinichi wakes up, and enters his body by burrowing into his arm instead. In the Japanese version, it takes over his right hand and is named , after the Japanese word for 'right'. Because Shinichi was able to prevent Migi from traveling further up into his brain, both beings retain their separate intellect and personality. As the duo encounters other Parasites, they capitalize on their strange situation and gradually form a strong bond, working together to survive. This gives them an edge in battling other Parasites who frequently attack the pair upon realization that Shinichi's human brain is still intact. Shinichi feels compelled to fight other Parasites, who devour other members of the species they infect as food, while enlisting Migi's help. 

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The story centers on Port Moresby and his wife Kit, a married couple originally from New York who travel to the North African desert accompanied by their friend Tunner. The journey, initially an attempt by Port and Kit to resolve their marital difficulties, is quickly fraught by the travelers' ignorance of the dangers that surround them. 

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The plot concerns a mercenary named Michael Gold (Lee) who is sent to convince Dr. Braun (Borgnine), a Laser specialist, to defect to the United States before the KGB acquire him and use both his talent and a stolen diamond to create a nuclear weapon. Dr. Braun is captured by the KGB and Gold is sent on a mission to rescue both him and the diamond. He has to enlist the help of Dr. Braun's daughter Alissa (Debi A. Monahan), whom he eventually falls for. The pair confront Col. Kalishnakov (Graham Clarke), whom they kill by hitting him with a truck in the climax of this story. 

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Whistle! is about a middle school boy named Shō Kazamatsuri. He transfers from Musashinomori School to Sakura Jōsui Junior High School for better hopes to make the soccer team, since he never got a game at his old school due to his small stature. Yūko Katori, his teacher, introduces him as a former star of the famed Musashinomori team, causing his classmates to be wrongly ecstatic. Right after that, one of the players, Tatsuya Mizuno, reveals that he was never a regular. In other words, since he never got the chance to play, Shō is a poor player. Shō struggles to improve his skill so he can make the team at his new school and to ignore the drastic disadvantage he has due to his height. 

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And the Ass Saw the Angel tells the story of Euchrid Eucrow, a mute born to an abusive drunken mother and a father obsessed with animal torture and the building of dangerous traps. The family live in a valley of fanatically religious Ukulites, where they are shunned. Euchrid's mental breakdown includes horrific angelic visions, and the story builds towards Euchrid exacting terrible vengeance on the people who have made him suffer. 

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In the hills above Cannes, a European elite has gathered in the business-park Eden-Olympia, a closed society that offers its privileged residents luxury homes, private doctors, private security forces, their own psychiatrists, and other conveniences required by the modern businessman. The book's protagonist, Paul, quits his job as an editor and moves to Eden-Olympia with his wife Jane when she is offered a job there as a pediatrician. At first glance, Eden-Olympia seems the ideal workers' paradise, but beneath its glittering, glass-wall surface, all is not well. For if things are running smoothly, then why are all the residents – these well-established businessmen, doctors, architects, and producers – all suffering heavily from stress and insomnia? And why did Jane's predecessor, the well-liked and apparently quite sane David Greenwood, go to work one day with an assault rifle strapped over his shoulders, murdering several of his friends and co-workers, before he put the rifle to his own head? Quickly bored with life in Eden-Olympia ("the kind of adolescent society where you define yourself by the kind of trainers you wear"), Paul decides to investigate the events that led to Greenwood's death, and begins walking in his footsteps. He soon discovers that just beneath the calm, well-mannered surface of his new home lies an underworld of crime, deviant sex, and drugs that seems to be prospering and growing. And all the residents at Eden-Olympia seem not only to be aware of this, but to encourage and welcome this underworld, as it provides them with a means to relate to something other than their jobs, and – by entering that world – to let go of the social restraints and etiquette that define their lives. Paul discovers that Eden-Olympia's resident psychiatrist, Wilder Penrose, is eagerly encouraging his patients (and there are many of them) to indulge themselves in activities involving sex and violence, as a (successful) cure for their symptoms of stress. Says Penrose: "Psychopathy is its own most potent cure, and always has been. At times, it grasps entire nations in its grip and sends them through vast therapeutic spasms. No drug in the world is that powerful." 

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The Power of One follows an English-speaking South African boy named Peekay from 1939 to 1951. The story begins when Peekay's mother has a nervous breakdown, and Peekay ends up being raised by a Zulu wet nurse, Mary Mandoma, who eventually becomes his nanny. At a young age, Peekay is sent to a boarding school. As the youngest student attending the school, he is frequently harassed. The students call him Piskop (meaning piss-head) and rooinek (redneck—a name given to the British soldiers during the Boer War) among other names. This continues with an older boy, the Judge, and his partners who further punish him for his frequent bedwetting with verbal and physical abuse. The Judge is a Nazi sympathizer, and he has a hatred for the English, proclaiming that Hitler will march the English out to sea. The Afrikaans woman who runs the boarding school does not console him and walks around threateningly with a whip. When Peekay returns home after his first year at the boarding school, his nanny calls a medicine man called Inkosi-Inkosikazi to cure his bedwetting. Inkosi-Inkosikazi not only succeeds, but also leads Peekay's mind to a place where there are three waterfalls and ten stepping stones, where Peekay can always "find" him. The next school year, Peekay returns with a magic chicken of Inkosi-Inkosikazi's and a different paradigm, called "the power of one". Peekay is excellent in his studies, but maintains a camouflage to hide it from his fellow students and teachers. He finds that this is a good way to beat the system and avoid unnecessary abuse. As the punishments from the Judge continue to get worse, Peekay ends up doing the Judge's math homework. At the end of the year, the Judge forces Peekay to eat feces, and kills his beloved chicken. He looks forward to arriving home to his nanny, but has been informed there has been a change in plans. He will be travelling to a town called Barberton, where he will meet his grandfather. On the train ride to Barberton, Peekay meets Hoppie Groenwald, who shows Peekay his boxing gloves. Hoppie is a boxing champion, and he invites Peekay to watch him box during a stop in the ride. It is there that Peekay is inspired to be the welterweight champion of the world. Hoppie teaches Peekay the phrase "First with your head, then with the heart," a phrase which Peekay commits to memory. At Barberton, Peekay sees his mother again. She has returned from the mental institution and converted to being a born again Christian. He learns that his mother had left his nanny because she refused to convert. His mother also tries to convert him, but he tells his mother that the Lord is a "shithead." Retreating to the hills behind his home, Peekay meets a German professor, Karl von Vollensteen, whom Peekay calls "Doc." Doc is a music professor and botanist who collects cacti and has his own cacti garden. Doc and Peekay become close friends, and he offers Peekay piano lessons. When World War II breaks out, Doc is taken into the Barberton prison for being an unregistered alien. Peekay visits him every day for piano lessons, and attends the prison's boxing squad. A prisoner with whom Peekay becomes friends, Geel Piet, teaches him to box, and Peekay leads the team to a victory. Later, Peekay develops great sympathy for the prisoners and arranges Doc and Geel Piet a letter-writing service and a tobacco distribution service. This makes Peekay very famous among the prisoners, and they call him the great chief "Tadpole Angel" (a reference to Doc being the "Frog" for his nightly piano playing). One of the warders discovers that some suspicious activity has been going on, and one night, Geel Piet is murdered in the gym. The war ends, and Doc finds himself free again. Ms. Boxhall, the local librarian, and a Jewish schoolteacher, Miss Bornstein, work with Doc to further encourage the blossoming of Peekay's intellect with activities such as science, literature and chess. He passes his Royal College of Music exams and earns the title of best under-twelve boxer in the region. With the help of his guides, Peekay is accepted into the prestigious Prince of Wales school in Johannesburg. At the Prince of Wales, Peekay partners with the son of a Jewish millionaire, Hymie (Morrie in American versions) Levy. They pull off many "scams" to earn money and Peekay joins the school's failing boxing team. Morrie becomes Peekay's manager and they pull off the school's first win in many years. Peekay starts boxing lessons with South Africa's famous Solly Goldman. He then faces Gideon Mandoma, the son of his beloved Nanny, and defeats him, cementing the title of "great chief". Peekay grows to be a stranger to failure, excelling at academics, boxing and rugby. Near the end of his last year of school, he must face the death of Doc and not earning a Rhodes scholarship, therefore missing his chance to join Morrie (Hymie) at Oxford to study law. As a result, Peekay takes a year off of boxing and academics and goes to work in Northern Rhodesia's copper mines to "find himself" and build up the muscle to become a welterweight. He takes on the dangerous work of a "grizzly man" as required by all new miners, but continues on to earn double wages, thereby saving enough to attend Oxford. At the mines, he meets a Georgian called Rasputin and they become close friends. When Peekay has an accident in his shaft, Rasputin saves Peekay, but gives his own life up instead. Rasputin names Peekay as his beneficiary; that and his own insurance payout gives him enough to be able to attend Oxford. One night before Peekay leaves the mining camp, Peekay meets his old nemesis, the Judge, in a bar at the mines. The Judge is in an insane rage due to handling mine explosives and tries to kill Peekay. A fight ensues and Peekay puts all he has learned in his life to destroy the Judge. After defeating the Judge, Peekay carves a Union Jack and the initials "PK" over the Swastika on the Judge's arm. He then walks into the night. 

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In September 1942, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Colonel Leslie Groves (Paul Newman) who oversaw construction of the Pentagon is assigned to head the ultra-secret Manhattan Project, to beat the Germans, who have a similar nuclear weapons program. Groves picks University of California, Berkeley, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Dwight Schultz) to head the team of the project. Oppenheimer was familiar with northern New Mexico from his boyhood days when his family owned a cabin in the area. For the new research facility, he selects a remote location on top of a mesa adjacent to a valley called Los Alamos Canyon, northwest of Santa Fe. The different personalities of the military man Groves and the scientist Oppenheimer often clash in keeping the project on track. Oppenheimer in turn clashes with the other scientists, who debate whether their personal consciences should enter into the project or whether they should remain purely researchers, with personal feelings set aside. Nurse Kathleen Robinson (Laura Dern) and young physicist Michael Merriman (John Cusack) question what they are doing. Working with little protection from radiation during an experiment, Michael drops a radioactive component during an experiment dubbed Tickling the Dragon's Tail and retrieves it by hand in order to avoid disaster, but is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. In the base hospital, nurse Kathleen can only watch as he develops massive swelling and deformation before dying a miserable death days later. (This episode is drawn from an accident that happened to physicist Louis Slotin.Grouett, Stephane. Manhattan Project: The Untold Story of the Making of the Atomic Bomb (Boston: Little, Brown & Company), 1967, page 324.) While the technical problems are being solved, investigations are undertaken in order to thwart foreign espionage, especially from communist sympathizers who might be associated with socialist organizations. The snooping reveals that Oppenheimer has had a young mistress, Jean Tatlock (Natasha Richardson), and he is ordered by Groves to stop seeing her. After he breaks off their relationship without being able to reveal the reasons why, she is unable to cope with the heartache and is later found dead, apparently a suicide. As the project continues in multiple sites across America, technical problems and delays cause tensions and strife. To avoid a single point of failure plan, two separate bomb designs are implemented: a large, heavy plutonium bomb imploded using shaped charges ("Fat Man"), and an alternative design for a thin, less heavy uranium bomb triggered in a shotgun design ("Little Boy"). The bomb development culminates in a detonation in south-central New Mexico at the Trinity Site in the Alamogordo Desert (05:29:45 on July 16, 1945), where everyone watched in awe at the spectacle of the first mushroom cloud with roaring winds, even miles away. In the end, both bombs, Fat Man and Little Boy, were successful, ushering in the Atomic Age. 

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The Day of Al'Akbar is an adventure scenario set in a once peaceful desert land reminiscent of the Arabian Nights. The module contains two distinct settings, Khaibar City and the Sultan's palace. Khaibar city, is ruled by the bandit leader Al'Farzikh, and was once ruled by Al'Akbar, a former sultan. The people are at risk from a red plague, and the player characters are set on a quest to retrieve the magical artifacts that will save them. The scenario involves player characters searching the sewers under the city of Khaibar for an entrance to the tomb of Al'Akbar, which contains the Cup and Talisman that they need. The players' choices determine whether the search will involve wilderness encounters, dungeon crawling in a sewer, tomb robbing, or detective work in a desert town. The final confrontation takes place in the Sultan's palace. 

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Player characters begin by arriving at the eponymous keep, and can base themselves there before investigating the series of caverns in the nearby hills teeming with monsters. These Caves of Chaos house multiple species of vicious humanoids. Plot twists include a treacherous priest within the keep, hungry lizardmen in a nearby swamp, and a mad hermit in the wilderness. It typifies the dungeon crawls associated with beginning D&D; players, while permitting some limited outdoor adventures. When The Grand Duchy of Karameikos edition of the Gazetteer series was published, the Keep was given a specific location in the Known World of Mystara, in the Atlan Tepe Mountain region in northern Karameikos. 

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In this scenario, the adventurers pass through magical portals into a series of interlinked chambers. The characters are encouraged by a young scholarly mage to voyage into the Sea of Pastures, to explore a mysterious island connected with a number of recent shipwrecks and disappearances. The island is grassy and windblasted, but eventually the characters discover a stone door leading into a subterranean complex. There, they discover 18 rooms linked by secret passages and magical portals. Most of these rooms have been ransacked by a variety of other survivors, human and monstrous. These survivors are likewise trapped within the labyrinth and are either eking out a miserable existence there or else desperately searching for a means of escape. Also within the building are a number of extraplanar creatures, collectively known as gingwatzim, who can shift between various forms: an energy form (glowing ball of light), an inanimate form (usually a magical weapon), and an animate form (an animal or monster). Eventually the characters may find the exit, and are once again deposited on the dreary islands to await rescue. 

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The module is described as a low-level scenario that involves evil creatures prowling the unexplored reaches of Bone Hill. (preview) The campaign setting and scenario featured in the book detail a complete town in the Lendore Isles, along with nearby monster lairs. The player characters adventure in and around the fishing port of Restenford. The module is more of a mini-setting than an adventure, offering several adventure locations, and may require a Dungeon Master to expand it using the World of Greyhawk milieu. The module expands upon the basic types of undead creatures found. 

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The Earl of Essex (Errol Flynn) returns in triumph to London after having dealt the Spanish a crushing naval defeat at Cadiz. In London, an aging Queen Elizabeth (Bette Davis) awaits him with love, but also with fear, because of his popularity with the commoners and his consuming ambition. His envious rivals include Sir Robert Cecil (Henry Daniell), Lord Burghley (Henry Stephenson), and Sir Walter Raleigh (Vincent Price). His only friend at court is Francis Bacon (Donald Crisp). Instead of the praise he is expecting, Essex is stunned when Elizabeth criticizes him for his failure to capture the Spanish treasure fleet as he had promised. When his co-commanders are rewarded, Essex protests, precipitating a break between the lovers. He leaves for his estates. Elizabeth pines for him, but refuses to degrade herself by recalling him. But when Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone (Alan Hale, Sr.) revolts and routs the English forces in Ireland, the Queen has the excuse she needs to summon Essex. She intends to make him Master of the Ordnance, a safe position at court. However, his enemies goad him into taking command of the army to be sent to quash the rebellion. Essex pursues Tyrone, though his letters to Elizabeth begging for much-needed men and supplies go unanswered. Unbeknownst to him, his letters to her, and hers to him, are being intercepted by Lady Penelope Grey (Olivia de Havilland), a lady-in-waiting who loves him herself. Finally, Elizabeth, believing herself to be scorned, sends him an order to disband his army and return to London. Furious, Essex ignores it, orders a night march and thinks he has finally cornered his foe. However, at a parley, Tyrone points out the smoke rising from the English camp, signifying the destruction of the food and ammunition the English army needs. With no alternative, Essex accepts Tyrone's terms; he and his men disarm and sail back to England. Thinking he has been betrayed, he leads his army in a march on London, to seize the crown for himself. Elizabeth offers no resistance to his forces, but once alone with him, convinces him that she will accept joint rule of the kingdom. He then naively disbands his army and is quickly arrested and condemned to death. The day of his execution, Elizabeth can wait no longer. She summons him, hoping he will abandon his ambition in return for his life (which she is eager to grant). However, Essex tells her that he will always be a danger to her, and walks to the chopping block. 

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The film tells the story of a young man, Pedro Rojas (Roberto Sosa) starting his career as a Highway Patrolman in the rural north. He refuses to take part in the corruption in the police force, unlike his friend Anibal Guerrero (Bruno Bichir) who quickly starts taking bribes and peddling contraband. Gradually, Pedro's high principles are eroded by the hardships of his life. Eventually he takes his first bribe. He is shot in the leg, nagged by his father's ghost and beats up the governor's son. His wife Griselda (Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez), tolerates his relationship with a prostitute, Maribel (Vanessa Bauche), provided it doesn't reflect badly on herself and the money keeps coming in. When Anibal is murdered by drug dealers, Pedro's moral sense re-emerges and he takes revenge. The film ends with Pedro resigning from the Highway Patrol, trying to maintain two families. 

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Phillip is a naive nobody with an uncanny knack for winning in a casino. Not much caring if he wins or loses, Phillip goes on a weeks-long hot streak in Las Vegas that ultimately comes to the attention of a lot of people who want his money. Lusting after it most is Louise, a lounge singer and con artist who seduces Phillip in the Liberace museum, then lies to him that she is $150,000 in debt from medical and funeral expenses for her parents. Her ex-husband Wolf wants a piece of the action as well. He just happens to be Phillip's brother, and is lugging around the corpse of their own dead father. Louise's current boyfriend Jack is another interested party, as is a loan shark, Kingman, and a mob hit man, Joey, who's perfectly willing to shoot innocent bystanders in the casino if it'll get him what he wants. Phillip seems helpless against them, but there may be more to him than meets the eye. 

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The film opens by following two American high school acquaintances, a few years after graduation. They are now suffering from deep anger and anguish, because they are not as successful as they hoped to be. Hancock is the high school basketball star who gets into college on an athletic scholarship only to lose the scholarship to a better player. Unable to succeed in college based on his academic merit, he returns to his hometown, becomes a police officer and is slowly moving into a middle-class mediocrity with his cheerleader girlfriend, Mary, who is in college and plans to major in the arts. Hancock is still stewing over the fact that he is no longer the sports star and that his girlfriend is not only reluctant to marry him but may end up being more successful than he. Danny is the academic "nerd" who was supposedly destined to be so successful that he earned the nickname "Senator". It was felt by some that one day he would become a decent and just politician. He has returned home with his unrestrained, unpredictable, overbearing bride, Bev. After a quick Christmas Eve reunion with his parents, Danny learns that his father is dying. He is unable to accept that while he left town with great expectations, he has returned a poor drifter. His desire to run from his problems again, however, prompts Bev to mock his manhood in front of some of his high school friends at a bar and the two decide to hold up a convenience store perhaps as a means for Danny to prove his manhood or because that is just what "Hollywood white trash" would do. Just then, Hancock, unaware that Danny has returned to town, drives into the store's parking lot arguing with his girlfriend about the future of their relationship. Interrupting the robbery, he fatally shoots Danny and wounds Bev. Hancock then suffers something of an emotional breakdown. Danny and Hancock are shown to really have little in common except that Danny once had a crush on Mary and perhaps a repressed crush on Hancock. As other police officers and paramedics arrive on scene, Hancock drives with his girlfriend to an open field where he had previously shared, with his police partner, some of his frustrations. He screams to Mary how he feels he has been lied to while growing up. Later Hancock has to personally inform Danny's father that he has killed his son. 

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Promised Land had an ensemble cast, which featured Russell Greene (Gerald McRaney) who was on a divine mission. In the premiere episode, which aired as a special episode of Touched by an Angel, angels Tess (Della Reese) and Monica (Roma Downey) asked Russell, recently laid off from his factory job, to "redefine what it means to be a good neighbor and recapture the American dream." To do this, Russell and his family traveled around the country in a beat up Airstream trailer, helping people in need, looking for work, and learning from their experiences. Russell's family included his wife Claire (Wendy Phillips), who was licensed to homeschool their kids while they were on the road; his mother Hattie (Celeste Holm), who updated a hand-embroidered map to show all places they had traveled; teenage son Josh (Austin O'Brien); daughter Dinah (Sarah Schaub); and young nephew Nathaniel (Eddie Karr), who had been abandoned by Russell's troubled brother Joe (Richard Thomas). Erasmus was an old friend of the family who lived in Chickory Creek, the small town in Kentucky where Hattie grew up. The family frequently returned to Chicory Creek to celebrate holidays and to rest. Occasionally they were assisted by Tess or other angels while they tried to help people overcome their personal problems or rekindle their lapsed faith. Early in the second season, Claire found out that she was pregnant, but tragically their infant daughter, Grace, died soon after her birth in the season's final episode. In the third season, the family decided to settle down and moved into a run-down small house in a poor neighborhood in Denver, Colorado. Russell convinced the owner to let them live there rent free in exchange for the renovations he made to the house. Claire got a job as a guidance counselor at the local high school, where Josh and Dinah enrolled as students. Russell volunteered at the Ridley Center, a neighborhood teen center. Living next door to the Greenes in Denver were Shamaya and her teenage brother L.T., a former gang member who was struggling with trying to go straight. Josh's girlfriend was Bobbie, an unwed mother with an infant son, and Dinah had a friend named Margot, who enjoyed the 1940s era and its fashions in particular. In the series final episode, Hattie married an old friend of the family and Russell quit the Ridley Center to take a job as a police officer. Most of the third season was spent in Denver, Colorado, but — much like Touched by an Angel — it was filmed in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

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Stuart Shepard (Colin Farrell) is an arrogant New York City publicist who has been dating Pamela McFadden (Katie Holmes) behind the back of his wife Kelly (Radha Mitchell). While in Times Square, Stu uses a public phone booth to contact Pam. During the call, he is interrupted by a pizza delivery man who attempts to deliver a free pizza to him, but Stu rudely turns him away. As soon as Stu completes his call, the phone rings. Stu answers; a man on the other end, who knows his name, warns him not to leave the booth, threatening to tell Kelly about Pam. The caller tells Stu that he has tested two previous individuals who have done wrong deeds in a similar manner, giving each a chance to reveal the truth to those they wronged, but in both cases they refused and were killed. Stu must confess his feelings to both Kelly and Pam to avoid the same fate. To demonstrate the threat, the caller fires a suppressed sniper rifle with pinpoint accuracy. The caller then contacts Pam and connects her to Stu, who admits that he is married. The booth is approached by three prostitutes demanding to use the phone, but Stu refuses to leave, without revealing his situation. Leon (John Enos III), a pimp, smashes the side of the booth, puts Stu in a headlock and repeatedly punches him while the prostitutes cheer him on. The caller offers to "make him stop" and in Stu's desperation, he accidentally asks for this; the caller shoots Leon dead. The prostitutes immediately blame Stu, accusing him of having a gun, as the police and news crews converge on the location. NYPD Captain Ed Ramey (Forest Whitaker) seals off the area and negotiates to make Stu leave the booth, but he refuses. Stu tells the caller that there is no way they can incriminate him, but the caller draws his attention to a handgun planted in the roof of the phone booth. As Kelly and Pam both arrive on the scene, the caller demands that Stu tell Kelly the truth, which he does. The caller then orders Stu to choose between Kelly and Pam, and the woman he does not choose will be killed. Stu secretly uses his cell phone to call Kelly, allowing her to overhear his conversation with the caller; she quietly informs Ramey of this. Meanwhile, Stu continues to confess to everyone that his whole life is a lie, to make himself look more important than he really is. Stu's confession provides sufficient distraction to allow the police to trace the payphone call to a nearby building. Stu warns the caller that the police are on the way, and the caller replies that if he is caught, he will kill Kelly. Panicked, Stu grabs the handgun and leaves the booth, screaming for the sniper to kill him instead. The police fire upon Stu, while a SWAT team breaks into the room that the caller was tracked to, only to find a rifle and a man's corpse. Stu regains consciousness to find the police fired only rubber bullets at him, stunning but not harming him. Stu and Kelly happily reunite. As the police bring down the body, Stu identifies it as the pizza delivery man from earlier. Stu gets medical treatment at a local ambulance; as he does, the real caller (Kiefer Sutherland) passes by and warns Stu that if his newfound honesty does not last, he will return. The man then disappears into the crowd. Later, the pay phone rings and another man answers. 

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Early one morning, a room-service waiter at a New York City hotel is horrified to discover that the young man to whom he has just delivered breakfast is standing on the narrow ledge outside his room on the 15th floor. Charlie Dunnigan, a policeman on traffic duty in the street below, tries to talk him off the ledge to no avail. He is ordered back to traffic patrol by NYPD emergency services deputy chief Moksar, but he is ordered to return when the man on the ledge will not speak to psychiatrists summoned to the scene. Coached by a psychiatrist, Dunnigan tries to relate to the man on the ledge as one human to another. The police identify the man as Robert Cosick and locate his mother, but her overwrought, hysterical behavior only upsets Cosick and seems to drive him toward jumping. His father, whom he despises, arrives. The divorced father and mother clash over old family issues, and the conflict is played out in front of the police. Dunnigan seeks to reconcile Robert with his father, whom Cosick has been brought up to hate by his mother. Dunnigan forces Mrs. Cosick to reveal the identity of a "Virginia" mentioned by Robert, and she turns out to be his estranged fiancée. While this is happening, a crowd is gathering below. Cab drivers are wagering on when he will jump. A young stock- room clerk named Danny is wooing a fellow office worker, Ruth, whom he meets by chance on the street. A woman is seen at a nearby law office, where she is about to sign the final papers for her divorce. Amid legal formalities, she watches the drama unfold. Moved by the tragic events, she decides to reconcile with her husband. After a while, Dunnigan convinces Cosick everyone will leave the hotel room so that he can rest. As Cosick steps in, a crazy evangelist sneaks into the room and Cosick goes back to the ledge. This damages his trust in Dunnigan, as does an effort by police to drop down from the roof and grab him. As night falls, Virginia is brought to the room, and she pleads with Robert to come off the ledge, to no avail. All the while, the police, under the command of Moksar, are working to grab Robert and put a net below him. Dunnigan seems to make a connection with Cosick when he talks about the good things in life, and he promises to take Cosick fishing for "floppers" on Sheepshead Bay. Cosick is about to come inside when a boy on the street accidentally turns on a spotlight that blinds Robert, and he falls from the ledge. He manages to grab a net that the police had stealthily put below him, and he is hauled into the hotel. Dunnigan is greeted by his wife and son, and Danny and Ruth walk the street hand in hand. 

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Rugged mining engineer Rian Mitchell (Stewart Granger) discovers a lost emerald mine in the highlands of Colombia, which had last been operated by the Spanish conquistadors. Rian is a man consumed by the quest for wealth. However, he has to contend with local bandits and a savage jaguar. Taken to recuperate at the plantation home of local coffee grower Catherine Knowland (Grace Kelly) and her brother Donald (John Ericson), Rian manages to charm Catherine. His partner, Vic Leonard (Paul Douglas), is preparing to leave Colombia on the next ship. Rian, anxious to get Vic's assistance to mine the emeralds, tricks him into staying. Returning to the mine, Rian first gets Catherine's cooperation and then resumes his romantic overtures. However, his greed to get the emeralds at any cost soon creates trouble. He comes into conflict with the chief of the local bandits, who threatens Catherine at her home. He also takes Donald into the mining operation, despite Donald's complete inexperience, solely in order to obtain the coffee plantation workers on for his mining needs. This, however, means that Catherine does not have enough workers available to pick the coffee when harvest time arrives. Rian's mining operations also put the plantation at risk of flooding. When a tragic accident at the mine site kills Donald, even Vic abandons his old friend Rian and sets out to help Catherine with her harvest, all the while harboring his own passion for the beautiful young woman. It takes a final shootout between the bandits and Rian's men, in which Catherine and Vic do support him, for Rian to finally come to his senses and realize his mistakes. At great risk to himself, he sets in place an explosion of dynamite that not only diverts the water away from Catherine's plantation, but also buries the mine under tons of rubble, from where it can no longer be reached. Rian then reunites with a forgiving Catherine. 

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The film covers much of Ying Zheng's career, recalling his early experiences as a hostage and foreshadowing his dominance over China. He is essentially depicted as an idealist seeking to impose a peace or unity on the world. However, his experiencing of various betrayals and losses slowly turn him into a mad tyrant. The story consists of three main incidents: the attempt by Jing Ke to assassinate Ying Zheng in 227 BCE; the (fictitious) rumour of a Chief Minister's having sired the latter before transferring his concubine to become the Queen Dowager; and the story of an official having sired children by the Queen Dowager herself. The first incident is the climax of the film, with earlier scenes foreshadowing it; the other two incidents occur between the fictional genesis and historical manifestation of the first. In the film, Ying Zheng sends his concubine Lady Zhao to the Yan state as a spy to enlist a Yan assassin to attempt to assassinate him, intending to use that as a casus belli to start a war against Yan. Lady Zhao persuades Jing Ke to perform the assassination. After learning of Ying Zheng's massacre of the children in her home state of Zhao, Lady Zhao desires the assassination in earnest. The attempt fails, but Ying Zheng expresses his fury when his associates make no attempt to stop the assassin and he is forced to kill Jing Ke himself. He is further saddened when Lady Zhao returns to Qin only to retrieve Jing Ke for burial. 

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In Grandsboro, California, Leigh Ann Watson is a high school student living with her single mother Faye, who works as a waitress. Leigh Ann's aim is to achieve top grades to become valedictorian and leave town. However, her grade in history class is threatened by her teacher, Mrs. Eve Tingle, who has a special dislike for Leigh Ann and downgrades her well-designed project due to a minor historical inaccuracy. Fellow student Luke Churner makes a copy of Tingle's final exam papers and offers them to Leigh Ann, but she refuses them. However, Luke stashes the papers in Leigh Ann's backpack. Tingle discovers the papers and threatens to expel her. Tingle heads to the principal's office, but he has left for the day and decides to tell him in the morning. Leigh Ann, Joy Lynn, her best friend, and Luke visit Tingle's house that night and try to persuade her that Leigh Ann is innocent. Tingle, however, refuses to listen. Luke threatens Tingle with a loaded crossbow, another student's project. A physical struggle ensues, and in the ensuing mêlée, Tingle is accidentally knocked unconscious. The students panic and tie Tingle to her bed. Leigh Ann returns to her house and promises to return in the morning, while Luke and Jo Lynn are left to watch Tingle. While under Jo Lynn's watch, Tingle regains consciousness, and playing on her guilt, asks to be untied. Tingle immediately attacks Jo Lynn, but is restrained again by Luke. The next morning, Jo Lynn calls the school and impersonates Tingle, calling in sick. Leigh Ann and Luke go to school, leaving Jo Lynn to watch Tingle. When they return home, the trio devises a plan to blackmail Tingle by using fake photos of Luke and Tingle in bed together. Meanwhile, Tingle plays mind games with Jo Lynn, concerning her jealousy about Leigh Ann's supposed relationship with Luke. Later that day, the plan goes awry when Coach Richard Wenchell, the school's gym teacher and Tingle's secret lover, visits the house. Jo Lynn, again, impersonates Tingle and blindfolds Coach Wenchell to hide her identity. When Wenchell passes out after a high intake of alcohol, the trio decide to blackmail Tingle by producing photographic evidence of her affair with Wenchell. While Leigh Ann and Luke leave to have the pictures printed and take an unconscious Wenchell back home, Tingle reveals to Jo Lynn that Leigh Ann and Luke spent the night together at a party. Distraught, Jo Lynn leaves. When Leigh Ann and Luke arrive back, Leigh Ann berates Tingle for hating her because she has, unlike Tingle herself, the potential to leave town and experience life. Tingle retaliates that she used to be like Leigh Ann and that Tingle herself is Leigh Ann's future. In response, Leigh Ann and Luke have sex downstairs. Later, the two find Tingle's history grade book. Leigh Ann marks down her rival Trudie Tucker's top A grade down to a B, and upgrades her own C to an A+. The next day at school, Jo Lynn ignores Leigh Ann, still hurt over the revelation. Leigh Ann tries to make amends, but admits that she had sex with Luke, further infuriating Jo Lynn. Tingle escapes from her bonds, ties Luke down in her place, and using the loaded crossbow, threatens Leigh Ann. Jo Lynn returns in a failed attempt to persuade Tingle she will help her blackmail Leigh Ann. After a violent fight, Tingle fires the crossbow, hitting Trudie in the chest as she enters the house. Leigh Ann checks her pulse and says she is dead. The principal arrives to check up on Tingle and is horrified by the scene. Guilt-ridden, Tingle confesses that she shot Trudie and wanted to make Leigh Ann fail like Tingle did herself. However, Trudie was protected by the thick textbook she was holding to her chest and is completely unharmed, which Leigh Ann already knew. The principal calls the police and fires Tingle. The film ends with Leigh Ann being named as valedictorian at graduation. 

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The film focuses on the March sisters: responsible Meg, tempestuous Jo, tender Beth, and romantic Amy, who are growing up in Concord, Massachusetts during and after the American Civil War. With their father away fighting in the war, the girls struggle with major and minor problems under the guidance of their strong-willed mother, affectionately called Marmee (pronounced "Mahmee" in 19th century New England). As a means of escaping some of their problems, the sisters revel in performing in romantic plays written by Jo in their attic theater. Living next door to the family is wealthy Mr. Laurence, whose grandson Theodore, nicknamed "Laurie", moves in with him and becomes a close friend of the March family, particularly Jo. Mr. Laurence becomes a mentor for Beth, whose exquisite piano-playing reminds him of his deceased young daughter, and Meg falls in love with Laurie's tutor John Brooke. When Mr. March is wounded in the war, Jo sells her hair so that Marmee can purchase a train ticket to travel to Mr. March and nurse him back to health. While Marmee is away, Beth continues Marmee's visits to a struggling immigrant family in order to provide them food and firewood. During this time she contracts scarlet fever from the family's infant. Awaiting Marmee's return, Meg and Jo, who both previously survived scarlet fever, send Amy away to live in safety with their Aunt March. Fearing that she too may contract the illness, Amy laments to Laurie that she may die without ever being kissed. Laurie promises Amy to kiss her before she dies should she become ill. Prior to Beth's illness, Jo had been Aunt March's companion for several years, and while she was unhappy with her position she tolerated it in the hope her aunt one day would take her to Europe. When Beth's condition worsens, Marmee is summoned home and nurses her to recovery just in time for Christmas, but the illness has severely weakened her. Mr. Laurence gives his daughter's piano to Beth, Meg accepts John Brooke's proposal and Mr. March surprises his family by returning home from the war. Four years pass; Meg (now twenty) and John marry, and Beth's health is deteriorating steadily. Laurie graduates from college, proposes to Jo (now nineteen) and asks her to go to London with him, but realizing she thinks of him more as an older brother than a lover, she refuses his offer. Jo later deals with the added disappointment that Aunt March has decided to take the now seventeen-year-old Amy with her to Europe instead of Jo, as Amy now works as aunt's companion and Aunt March wishes for Amy to further her training as an artist in Europe. Crushed, Jo departs for New York City to pursue her dream of writing and experiencing life. There she meets Friedrich Bhaer, a German professor who challenges and stimulates her intellectually, introduces her to opera and philosophy, and encourages her to write better stories than the lurid Victorian melodramas she has penned so far. In Europe, Amy is reunited with Laurie. She is disappointed to find he has become dissolute and irresponsible, and scolds him for pursuing her merely to become part of the March family. In return, he bitterly rebukes her for courting one of his wealthy college friends in order to marry into money. He leaves Amy a letter asking her to wait for him while he works in London for his grandfather and makes himself worthy of her. Jo is summoned home to see eighteen-year-old Beth, who finally dies of the lingering effects of scarlet fever (presumably rheumatic heart disease) that have plagued her for the past four years. A saddened Jo retreats to the comfort of the attic and begins to write her life story. Upon its completion, she sends it to Professor Bhaer. Meanwhile, Meg gives birth to fraternal twins Demi and Daisy. A letter from Amy informs the family that Aunt March is too ill to travel, so Amy must remain in Europe with her. In London, Laurie receives a letter from Jo in which she informs him of Beth's death and mentions Amy is in Vevey, unable to come home. Laurie immediately travels to be at Amy's side. They finally return to the March home as husband and wife, much to Jo's surprise and eventual delight. Aunt March dies and she leaves Jo her house, which she decides to convert into a school. Professor Bhaer arrives with the printed galley proofs of her manuscript, but when he mistakenly believes Jo has married Laurie he departs to catch a train to the West, where he is to become a teacher. Jo runs after him and explains the misunderstanding. When she begs him not to leave, he proposes marriage and she happily accepts. 

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Marvin (Hume Cronyn), a man who had a stroke 20 years ago, is left incapacitated and bed-ridden. He has been cared for by his daughter Bessie (Diane Keaton) in their Florida home, and totally ignored by his other daughter, Lee (Meryl Streep), who moved to Ohio with her husband 20 years ago and has never contacted her family. Now, however, Bessie's doctor has informed her that she has leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant and she turns to her sister for help. Lee, in turn, turns to her son Hank (Leonardo DiCaprio), who has been committed to a mental institution for setting fire to his mother's house, but he is unfortunately sedated. When Lee finds that she may have to take over her father's care, she at first begins shopping around for nursing homes. Eventually, however, the estranged family grows close. As Bessie progressively seems to get worse, Lee comes to terms that it is now her turn to take care of her family. The film closes on Lee familiarizing herself with her father's medication, as she walks into his room with his lunch, overlooking Bessie flashing the mirror that makes Marvin smile. 

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Bess McNeill is a young and beautiful Scottish woman, who has, in the past, been subjected to unenlightened psychiatric "treatment". She marries oil rig worker Jan Nyman, a Danish non-churchgoer, despite disapproval from her community and her Free Scottish Presbyterian Calvinist church. Bess is steadfast and pure of heart, but quite simple and childlike in her beliefs. During her frequent visits to the church, she prays to God and carries on conversations with Him in her own voice, believing that He is responding directly through her. Bess has difficulty living without Jan when he is away on the oil platform. Jan makes occasional phone calls to Bess in which they express their love and sexual desires. Bess grows needy and prays for his immediate return. The next day, Jan is severely injured in an industrial accident and is flown back to the mainland. Bess believes her prayer was the reason the accident occurred, that God was punishing her for her selfishness in asking for him to neglect his job and come back to her. No longer able to perform sexually and mentally affected by the paralysis, Jan asks Bess to find a lover. Bess is devastated and storms out. Jan then attempts to commit suicide and fails. He falls unconscious and is readmitted to hospital. Jan's condition deteriorates. He urges Bess to find another lover and tell him the details, as it will be as if they are together and will revitalize his spirits. Though her sister-in-law Dodo constantly reassures her that nothing she does will affect his recovery, Bess begins to believe these suggestions are the will of God and in accordance with loving Jan wholly. Despite her repulsion and inner turmoil to be with other men, she perseveres in her own sexual debasement as she believes it will save her husband. Bess throws herself at Jan's doctor, but when he rebuffs her, she takes to picking up men off the street and allowing herself to be brutalized in increasingly cruel sexual encounters. The entire village is scandalized by these doings, and Bess is excommunicated. In the face of being cast out from her church, she proclaims, "You cannot love words. You cannot be in love with the Word. You can only love a human being." Dodo and Jan's doctor agree the only way to keep Bess safe from herself is to have her committed, and as far away from her husband as possible. It is then that Bess decides to make what she thinks is the ultimate sacrifice for Jan: she unflinchingly goes out to a derelict ship full of barbarous sailors, who violently gang rape and attack her, causing her death. The church refuses to hold a funeral for her, deeming her soul to be lost and hell-bound. Unbeknownst to the church elders, Jan and his friends have substituted bags of sand for Bess's body inside the sealed coffin. Jan is later shown, substantially restored to health despite the doctors not having thought it possible, burying Bess in the ocean, deep in grief. The film ends in magical realism as Bess's body is nowhere to be seen on the sonar, and church bells ring from on high in the sky. 

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In the distant future, a military team is sent to investigate the disappearance of a Dead Vent 7 operative in a vessel that has been overrun by an alien presence. 

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After exploring through a deep space wormhole, the Terran Republic, a highly centralized oligarchic galactic government which had unconditionally ruled humanity for the past thousand years, discovered a single habitable planet. Not only was this planet suitable for the sustenance of life, but it also already possessed many native, highly developed, and staggeringly familiar flora. The Science Institute named this planet Auraxis. Taking a keen interest in this aberration, the Republic quickly sent expeditions through the wormhole to explore and colonize the planet. Shortly after arriving, the colonists discovered the remains and technology of a lost and ancient alien species – the Vanu (or Ancients). This technology proved to be so complex and powerful as to barely be conceivable to human minds, involving levels of energy previously thought to be physically unquantifiable. This allowed for the quick colonization of the ten continents of Auraxis, the creation of power sources and vehicles for the use of the colonists and, most importantly, it facilitated the development of rebirthing technology. This nanotechnology allowed the Terrans to deconstruct and reconstruct their own bodies, allowing fast transportation across the world. Later on, it was discovered that dead workers could be brought back to life using the technology, revealing a startling new possibility: immortality. Needless to say, the incredible power (and value) of this technology was systemically acknowledged, and despite the scale of the advances made due to the study of the technology, it was also recognized that humanity had not yet even scratched the surface of any future possibilities. Later on, the discovery that the planet itself had been an artificial construction of the Ancients further served to solidify the realization that, if left unchecked, Vanu technology would forever and irrevocably change humanity and its future. Shortly after the rebirthing technology was discovered, the wormhole collapsed, cutting the colony off from the Mother Republic and preventing the return of Vanu technology for proper examination. The Republic authorities took measures to hide this fact, while desperately exhausting all theoretical options for re-establishing the traversability of the wormhole. Meanwhile, as widespread usage of the technology grew, the Republic began to fear the potential repercussions of allowing so much power to be shifted so quickly into the hands of so many people. Namely, it feared that the rebirthing technology and the potential impunity to death, disease, and pain it afforded would cause massive philosophical shifts amongst the isolated population, thus pulling out one leg of the tripod that had sustained the Republic for a millennium: that of deterrence. More generally, the military feared that if use of the technology continued to spread, that the other two bases might come away as well: a populace armed with practically god-like power would have very little need of a strong authoritarian body to provide structure and purpose to their lives. Based on these trepidations, the Republic began to restrict usage of the new technologies, and halted all further research and development involving the Ancient Tech. It was too late, however, and their concerns began to materialize earlier than they had expected. As research diminished, so too did hopes of reopening the wormhole. As news of this began to escape the scientific community, general dissension set in. Amongst the populace, a great resultant of the loss of faith in the capability of the Republic (which had always presented itself as infallible) was a split in their loyalties. Two distinct groups emerged: the loyalists and the separatists. The separatists argued that the recent behavior of the Republic was full of obvious knee-jerk moves and over-reactive mistakes. Claiming that the Republic knew its end was at hand, the separatists advocated breaking away and forming a new society, now that their would-be "oppressors" were isolated and without aid. The loyalists countered that the Republic had never been abusive (a claim hotly debated) and had always looked out for its own, and that the Terran people at least owed them continued loyalty on that point alone. Meanwhile, in the intellectual circles and among the scientific establishment, there had long been the feeling that the Republic was ill at-ease with the possibilities of the New Science, and a movement had begun to sequester and conceal as many of the Vanu artifacts as could be feasibly obtained without overt notice. As the Terran demographic continued to polarize, these movements finally came to fruition as the predecessors of the Vanu Sovereignty made their exodus and took with them the research and artifacts they had managed to stockpile over the Auraxian years. Encouraged by this, the separatists seceded, seizing a number of military stockpiles and procuring a small arsenal of military assets: they called themselves the New Conglomerate. In a backlash to this, the Republic declared these two factions outlawed, announcing their intentions to reunify with them at all costs. Shortly after this, war broke out between the Terran Republic and the New Conglomerate. Not long after, the Vanu Sovereignty was attacked by the New Conglomerate and dragged into the war. 

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In the story, Roland Deschain is the last living member of a knightly order known as gunslingers and the last of the line of "Arthur Eld", his world's analogue of King Arthur. Politically organized along the lines of a feudal society, it shares technological and social characteristics with the American Old West but is also magical. Many of the magical aspects have vanished from Mid-World, but traces remain as do relics from a technologically advanced society. Roland's quest is to find the Dark Tower, a fabled building said to be the nexus of all universes. Roland's world is said to have "moved on", and it appears to be coming apart at the seams. Mighty nations have been torn apart by war, entire cities and regions vanish without a trace and time does not flow in an orderly fashion. Sometimes, even the sun rises in the north and sets in the east. As the series opens, Roland's motives, goals, and age are unclear, though later installments shed light on these mysteries. For a detailed synopsis of the novels, see the relevant article for each book. 

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The story deals with an early rendition of interdimensional travel. A fictional Lewis himself narrates, as he does in Perelandra, but Elwin Ransom appears as a supporting character. The story begins with a discussion of time travel among several academics at a university (subsequently identified as Cambridge) during summer vacation. They conclude that it is impossible to violate the laws of space-time in such a way. However, after the discussion, one of the men (Orfieu) unveils an invention he believes allows people to see through time. The group uses this "chronoscope" to observe an alien world they call "Othertime" (he does not know if it is future or past), where a group of human automatons work to construct a tower at the bidding of the story's villain, the "Unicorn", a devilish but human (or possibly semi-human) character with a single horn growing out of his forehead. The Unicorn stings people, apparently volunteers, causing them to become automatons (the "Jerkies"). After a while MacPhee, a character who appears in That Hideous Strength (though here he is a Scot, not an Irishman), points out that the "Dark Tower" is in fact a replica of the new Cambridge University Library. This suggests Othertime is the far future, with a replica of an ancient monument being constructed. It is discovered that Orfieu's assistant, Scudamour, has a double in Othertime. Increasingly, the observers wonder if Othertime really is the past or future, or whether it is some other reality. Scudamour's double grows a sting and becomes the new Unicorn. During one viewing session, Scudamour sees the Unicorn about to sting the double of his fiancée, Camilla. In a blind fury, he rushes at the screen, and somehow switches bodies with the Unicorn. The remainder of the text deals with his experiences in Othertime, as well as his colleagues' attempt to hunt down the Unicorn in this world. In Othertime, Scudamour survives by playing on his authority, his only card, while he tries to learn. He discovers to his amazement that there is a chronoscope in the Unicorn's room where he stung victims -- but it is now broken. He refrains from stinging Camilla, and tries to plan their escape. It appears there is some sort of war (being waged by the "White Riders", who want to remove the stingers from the "unicorns") against the Othertime government. He reads in a library about the Othertimer's time- science. A theory is given of multiple timelines; these do not seem to split off from different outcomes, like quantum realities, but simply proceed separately. However, they can be controlled, and contact between them can be made. References are made to the changeling myth. The law is stated that "Any two time-lines approximate to the exact degree to which their material contents are alike," and it is revealed that an experiment with a replica railway shed in the right place had already been successful in allowing a controlled transfer of minds. The text ends with Scudamour still reading. 

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The opening titles of each episode are prefaced by a television interview in which Professor Ernst Reinhart (Esmond Knight) looks back on the events of the serial. 

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The play is in Rapley's voice and was first performed by him in 2014 at the Royal Court Theatre, London. The piece is partially a memoir of Rapley's life and career and partially an explanation of climate change and of the controversies surrounding it. The title, 2071, is the year in which Rapley's oldest grandchild will be 67 years old, which was Rapley's age when he first performed it in 2014. 

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Elizabeth von Arnim's novel tells of four dissimilar women in 1920s England who leave their rainy, grey environments to go on holiday in Italy. Mrs. Arbuthnot and Mrs. Wilkins, who belong to the same ladies' club, but have never spoken, become acquainted after reading a newspaper advertisement for a small medieval castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be let furnished for the month of April. They find some common ground in that both are struggling to make the best of unhappy marriages. Having decided to seek other ladies to help share expenses, they reluctantly take on the elegant but peevish elderly Mrs. Fisher, and the stunning, aloof, and very wealthy Lady Caroline Dester. The four women come together at the castle and, after many unexpected twists and turns, find rejuvenation in the tranquil beauty of their surroundings, rediscovering hope and love. 

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The series follows Max, an adventurous preteen boy who receives in the mail a small statue of a fowl, inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs whereof the translation states: "You have been chosen to be the cap-bearer. Go to the mini-mart and wait for a sign, Mighty Max". Shocked by the message, Max drops the statue, shattering it and revealing a red baseball cap emblazoned with a yellow "M", which he dons. The cap is capable of projecting wormhole- like "portals" through which Max can teleport across space and time. Upon arriving at the mini-mart, Max is chased by a lava-monster sent by antagonist 'Skullmaster'. As Max flees, the cap teleports them to the Mongolian desert, where he befriends Virgil, a nearly omniscient Lemurian whose appearance is that of an anthropomorphic "fowl" (a running gag in the series is that Max refers to Virgil as a "chicken" to which the Lemurian replies "Fowl, actually"), who explains that Max's reception of the cap was prophesied c. 3000 B.C. Thereafter Max, Virgil, and Norman, his Viking bodyguard, travel together around the world, defending Earth against the minions of Skullmaster, who is responsible for the downfall of the Lemurians and the people of Atlantis. Norman is supposedly immortal and identified as or with Sir Lancelot, Thor, Samson, and Hercules. Most plot-driving episodes involve Skullmaster or one of his monstrous followers; but in many episodes, Max is required to stop an independent villain. While all episodes involve travel across Earth, one involves time travel, and the portal can even extend into the astral plane (as seen in the episode "Souls of Talon"). While generally lighthearted and comical, the show's violence and descriptions of violent acts were considered excessive by some viewers. Many episodes began with a depiction of the story's principal monster killing a victim, whereas the series finale featured Max, Norman, and Virgil pitted against Skullmaster and their previously defeated foes. Both Norman and Virgil are killed, leaving Max to defeat Skullmaster. Unable to do so, Max uses the cap in order to time travel to the events of the first episode, creating a time paradox. At first, he experiences déjà vu, but after he reads Virgil's modified letter, he recalls everything, and decides to use the knowledge he gained from the initial timeline to set it right in order to defeat Skullmaster once and for all. 

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The protagonist, Spike Fumo (Mitchell), is a young Italian-American man who lives in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and aspires to be a boxer. However, he falls in love with a girl who turns out to be the daughter of a Mafia boss. As he is forced to leave, he moves to Red Hook, Brooklyn, a predominantly Puerto Rican section of Brooklyn, where he falls in love with a girl from that neighborhood. 

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The story concerns a beautiful but selfish and haughty princess who rejects the proposal of a wealthy prince.The Chestnut: The Singing Ringing Tree She scorns the gifts he offers her, and says that she will marry him only if he brings her the mythical "singing ringing tree". The prince locates the tree in the territory of an evil dwarf, who offers to give him the enchanted tree, on the understanding that, if the princess still rejects him, he will be in the dwarf's power and will be turned into a bear. Because the tree will only sing and ring when the princess falls in love with the prince, she is disappointed in it and continues to reject the prince. The prince is forced to return to the dwarf's lair and is turned into a bear. The princess sends her father to find the singing ringing tree for her, but he is met by the prince, in the guise of a bear, who gives him the tree on condition that the king returns with the first thing the king sees on his return. This turns out to be the princess, who is now delivered into the hands of the dwarf. The dwarf, seeing the princess's self-centred behaviour, casts a spell to make her ugly. The bear tells her that she will regain her beauty only if she changes her ways. Gradually she is won over by the bear and becomes beautiful again. Despite the dwarf's attempts to keep her and the prince apart, she eventually falls in love with him and the singing ringing tree finally lives up to its name. 

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